“I have nothing to declare except my genius.”

To define is to limit.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

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

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

To lose one parent, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.

It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

A good friend will always stab you in the front.

The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

There is no element of genius without some form of madness.

I don’t like myself, I’m crazy about myself.

I’m motivated by fear. Fear of fear. I hate being scared to do something. And I think what developed in my early days was the attitude that I started attacking things that I was scared of.

When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept it or resent it.

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything.

Though she be but little, she is fierce!

Well, honor is the subject of my story.