What fire does not destroy, it hardens - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

"When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy."

"To define is to limit."

"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit."

"She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain."

"But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to."