The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.

The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died.

It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners.

Art only begins where Imitation ends.

As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.

Twenty years of romance makes a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage makes her something like a public building.

Even things that are true can be proved.