Oscar Wilde is one of those writers -- Artists I should say -- that I admire most. I admire him for his exquisite language which is like music, for his wicked humour, for his sad irony... For his extreme intelligence and the preciseness of his comparisons. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of literature. Below I have gathered some of the phrases that send shivers down my spine -- some of them by their meaning, the others by their sound. Actually, this is just a small part of them. Otherwise I would have to type in all of the book.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" was published in 1890... Over a century ago... Isn't it just amazing the way this book reads now, the way it is not at all out-dated in its emotion and style. One of those rare books that change as their reader change, revealing new wonderful aspects that might have failed to be noticed before... It is a true work of art, that has a life of its own, that is out of control, that develops and grows even more beautiful with time.
Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners.
To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies.
Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips, and wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.
"I couldn't have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh word would ruin it."
You talk books away.
Her eyes were violet wells of passion, lips were like the petals of a rose.
She was free in her prison of passion.
Her love was trembling in laughter on her lips.
Unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality.
My lips moved towards hers. We kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that moment. It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one perfect point of rose-coloured joy.
I want to place her on a pedestal of gold, and to see the world worship the woman who is mine.
To be good is to be in harmony with one's self.
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
There is a fatality about good resolutions -- that they are always made too late.
The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen.
Religion consoles some. Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation.
Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking someone else's admirer when one loses one's own.
We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.
It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him.
Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words.
There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.
When you first met her, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her.
Youth smiles without reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.
He felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow.
When she is in a very smart gown she looks like an edition de luxe of a bad French novel.
When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.
...the wakening wonder of his face...
...a pushing nobody...