Jay

“This assumption that she need look for no more devotion now that her beauty had passed proceeded from the fact that she had never realized any love save love as passion. Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed through a long servitude, through its own self-hatred, through mockery, through great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties. Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

“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.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible....”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”
― John Greenleaf Whittier