From beginning to end Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fame had taken the plot out of his own hands.

Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.

Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; whatfrom the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer.

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

The closest modern equivalent to the Homeric hero is the ace fighter pilot.

It's usually the stupid people that develop long illnesses. You need more than indolence and selfishness, you need endurance to make a good patient.

America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an élite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment.