“My dear fellow why have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are. You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

“What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.”

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

“If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.”

“My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!”

“With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me.”

“My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces false impression”