I am the only person on earth I would like to know better.
I always have a very friendly attitude towards those I don't care about.
I have always believed, as I do now, that selfishness is the alpha and omega of contemporary art, but to be selfish, you have to have an ego. By no means, not to everyone who shouts, “Me! I!" they are allowed to enter the realm of art.
I always do this with good advice: I give it to others. I have nothing more to do with them.
I always amaze myself. That's the only thing worth living for.
I deeply pity the indignant English democrats. Of the so-called vices of the upper classes. People of the lower classes instinctively understand that drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their privileges, and if any of us suffer from these vices - he thereby usurps their rights.
I live in constant fear of being misunderstood.
I knew a young man who ruined himself because of his bad habit of answering all letters.
I like to talk about nothing. That's the only thing I know about.
I like to know everything about my new acquaintances and nothing about the old ones.
I love men with a future and women with a past.
I like hearing how others are insulted, but I don't - the last version has lost its novelty charm.
I love the stage, on it everything is more real than in life.
I can resist anything except temptation.
I don't believe a word you tell me... or you.
I don't want to know what is being said about me behind my back. It flatters me too much.
I don't like principles. I like prejudice better.
I don't approve of long engagements. This allows one to know the character of the other person, which, in my opinion, is not advisable.
I don't like fights for any reason. They are always vulgar and often convincing.
I would never have become his friend if I had known him. This is very dangerous - knowing your friends well.
I don't go anywhere without a diary. On the train, you should always have something interesting to read.
I wouldn't change anything about England except the weather.
I usually say what's on my mind. Nowadays that's a big mistake: you're too often misunderstood.
I proofread the poem for half a day and removed a comma. In the evening, I put it back.
I do not agree with everything I stated in this essay. I absolutely do not agree with many things. The essay simply develops an artistic point of view, and in art criticism position is everything. Because in art there is no universal truth. True in art is the truth whose opposite is also true.
I put all the systems in one phrase and the whole life in one aphorism.
I would like to remind those who scoff at beauty as something impractical, that an ugly thing is simply a badly done thing. In beauty there is a divine simplicity, it gives us only what is necessary; ugliness is wasteful, or of other things is always a sign that one has been impractical.
I am a married man, but this is the beauty of marriage, that both parties are inevitably forced to perfect themselves in lying.
Language is not the son, but the father of thought.
The bourgeoisie is exactly as I portray it in my novels: if there is a lot of dirt in my works, it is only because there is just as much dirt in life.