“...of all the kinds of decay in this world, decadent purity is the most malignant.”

“Like symbolism, decadence puts forth the idea that the function of literature is to evoke impressions and 'correspondences', rather than to realistically depict the world. ... the decadent aestheticized decay and took pleasure in perversity. In decadent literature, sickness is preferable to health, not only because sickness was regarded as more interesting, but because sickness was construed as subversive, as a threat to the very fabric of society. By embracing the marginal, the unhealthy and the deviant, the decadents attacked bourgeois life, which they perceived as the chief enemy of art.”

“Of all the religions in the world, perhaps the religion of liberty is the only faith capable of purity.”

“Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race.”

“Her soul opened slowly and timidly to her kind, but her imagination rushed out to the beauties of the visible world; and the decaying majesty of Allfriars moved her strangely.”

“The process of transformation consists mostly of decay.”