“Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.”

“In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.”

“I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing. ”

“LORD ILLINGWORTH. As George Harford I had everything I wanted. Now I have merely everything that other people want, which isn't nearly so pleasant.”

“Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me.”

“I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.”

“but love is not fashionable anymore, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent. I remember myself once-but no matter now. Romance is a thing of the past.”