“It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people ... To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.”

“What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see the Dawn!”

“All Reformers, however strict their Conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.”

“What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thoughts; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. They would make my fortune if I could catch them; but always the rarest, those freaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach.”

“The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work on the proceeds, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.”

“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”

“Yes there is a meaning; at least for me, there is one thing that matters - to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.”