“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The best thing about being 40 is that you can appreciate 25-year-old men more.”

“It's all you think about, all you talk about, and all you want us to talk about. What in the world would we call something like that? Oh, yeah! An obsession!”