“This is my book, and in my book my soulWith its two woven threads of joy and pain,And both were yours before they were begun..”

“I am the Love that Dare not Speak its Name”

“I have often behaved badly and I have often behaved foolishly; but, as it happens, I find that on the whole, the things that I have been most blamed for are exactly the things I would do again to-morrow if I had the chance. The things I regret are, generally speaking, the occasional compromises and the (infrequent) runnings away from high attitudes which I failed to carry through to their ends. In short, what I regret in my life is just that part of it which worldly wisdom applauds… A thing does not become right because the world says it is right, any more than it becomes wrong because the world says it is wrong. One can act only according to one’s lights and if one is in good faith, one may hope that in the long run justification will result, even if not in this world or in one’s own lifetime.”

“The poet wishes to strike beautiful notes, not new notes... To ask or expect a poet to strike a new note in poetry is exactly like asking or expecting the Nightengale to strike a new note in her perennial song.”

“When you go to heaven you can be what you like and I intend to be a child.”

“I defy anyone who retains the least spark of honour to spit on the real, essential love of one human being for another.”

“He (Wilde) did succeed in weaving spells. One sat and listened to him enthralled. It all appeared to be Wisdom and Power and Beauty and Enchantment... But a man who has broken loose from a spell cannot look back on the enchantment again and recapture the illusion of the shattered spell. He can only, as I do, remember that it was so, and wonder, and perhaps shudder a little.”