The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

I've heard this quoted before was this the original?

“Harry,” said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, “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.”

“Dorian Gray is to me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. That is all.”

The sky was pure opal now,

I am sure Taylor has read this book.

Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed. He winced. He hated the idea of even touching them.

Are you very much in love with him?” he asked. She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape. “I wish I knew,” she said at last. He shook his head. “Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.” “One may lose one’s way.” “All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys.” “What is that?” “Disillusion.”

There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being either, so they stagnate.”

course, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one’s worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one’s personality.”

“Don’t, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it.” “Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?” “Quite sure.” “Ah! then it must be an illusion. The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance.