Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might blow....

There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists.
Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.
A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures.
But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating.
The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look.
The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible.
He lives the poetry that he cannot write.
The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.