“Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.”
“In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.”
“The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.”
“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”
“Yes, I am a thorough republican. No other form of government is so favorable to the growth of art.”
“They are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.”
“A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.”
“Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.”
“Woman's first duty in life is to her dressmaker. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered.”
“The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.”
“Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.”
“One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.”
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.”
“There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”
“He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.”
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
“Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the two sexes.”
“Where there is no extravagance there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding.”
“It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.”
“There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.”
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
“My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.”
“The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.”
“The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”
“On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.”
“No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.”
“Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.”
“I'm sure I don't know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, from all I hear, I shouldn't like to.”
“While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.”
“There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.”