Some things are more precious because they don't last long.

JACK Your duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNON My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.

The artistic life is a long, lovely suicide.

The truth about the life of a man is not what he does, but the legend which he creates around himself.

Full frontal nudity is reserved for Adam and Eve!

every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.

You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest.