“He looked just perfect to play Dorian Gray in a film version of Oscar Wilde's novel. Young, graceful, and indecently fresh and handsome, he could easily have worn a badge that said READY FOR DEBAUCHERY!”

“... Likewise, Oscar Wilde asked an English journalist to look over 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' before publication: "Will you also look after my 'wills' and 'shalls' in proof. I am Celtic in my use of these words, not English." Wilde's novel upset virtually every code of late Victorian respectability, but he had to get his modal auxiliaries just right.”

“Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help liking the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His romantic, olive-coloured face and worn expression interested him. There was something in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating. His cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm. They moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid.”

“He tossed back the last of the blood. "I'm going to be young forever. I can do anything I want. Drink as much as I want. Sleep with anyone. Live a life of debauchery. And I'll never change. I'm like Dorian Gray." His eyebrows knit together, and he thought for a moment. "Without all the homosexual undertones.”

“Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde.”

“Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh new school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body - how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! If only you knew what Dorian Gray is to me!”