“As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady. ”

“L'artGreen arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth, Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.”

“The eyes of this dead lady speak to meFor here was love, was not to be drowned out.And here desire, not to be kissed away.The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.”

“ The Lake IsleO God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop,With the little bright boxespiled up neatly upon the shelvesAnd the loose fragrant cavendishand the shag,And the bright Virginialoose under the bright glass cases,And a pair of scales not too greasy,And the whores dropping in for a word or two in passing,For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,Lend me a little tobacco-shop,or install me in any professionSave this damn’d profession of writing,where one needs one’s brains all the time.”

“The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised litterati...when their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated, the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot.”

“No one knows, at sight a masterpiece.And give up verse, my boy,There's nothing in it.Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me:Don't kick against the pricks,Accept opinion. The Nineties tried your gameAnd died, there's nothing in it.”

“The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.”