The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

"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. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one,"

But I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.

He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. So

If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation."