He must be quite respectable. One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one's life, which speaks volumes for a man nowadays.
Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose.
As long as a thing is useful or necessary to us or affects us in any way, either for pain or pleasure, or appeals strongly to our sympathies or is a vital part of the environment in which we live, it is outside the proper sphere of art.
I couldn't have a scene in this bonnet: it is far too fragile. A harsh word would ruin it.
Music creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one's tears.
Nothing is so fatal to personality as deliberation.
I adore London dinner parties. The clever people never listen and the stupid people never talk.
Learned conversation is either the affection of the ignorant or the profession of the mentally unemployed.
The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures—which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people—which was worse.
All art is quite useless.