Oscar Wilde: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Sarah Bernhardt: 'I don't care if you burn.'

Once the curtain is raised, the actor is ceases to belong to himself. He belongs to his character, to his author, to his public. He must do the impossible to identify himself with the first, not to betray the second, and not to disappoint the third.

I do love cricket - it's so very English.

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

The truth, the absolute truth, is that the chief beauty for the theatre consists in fine bodily proportions.

Although all new ideas are born in France, they are not readily adopted there. It seems that they must first commence to prosper in a foreign country.

What matters poverty? What matters anything to him who is enamoured of our art? Does he not carry in himself every joy and every beauty?