The Picture of Dorian Gray

Lord Henry Wotton:
correcting the current: "I choose my friends carefully.", with the following: "I always choose my friends for their good looks, and my enemies for their good intellects. Man cannot be too careful in his choice of friends."

Lord Henry Wotton:
I apologize for the intelligence of my remarks, Sir Thomas, I'd forgotten that you were a member of Parliament.

Lord Henry Wotton:
I like persons better than principles and persons with no principles better than anything at all.

Lord Henry Wotton:
I suppose in a fortnight or so, we shall be told he's been seen in San Francisco. It's an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world.

Lord Henry Wotton:
There's only one way to get rid of temptation, and that's to yield to it.

Lord Henry Wotton:
"If I could get back my youth, I'd do anything in the world except get up early, take exercise or be respectable."

Dorian Gray:
If only it was the picture who was to grow old, and I remain young. There's nothing in the world I wouldn't give for that. Yes, I would give even my soul for it.

Dorian Gray:
You think it's only God who sees the soul.

Basil Hallward:
[having seen Dorian's corrupted portrait] But this is monstrous. It's beyond nature, beyond reason. What does it mean?

Dorian Gray:
On the day you finished this painting, I made a wish. Perhaps you would call it a prayer. My wish was granted.

Basil Hallward:
But you told me you had destroyed my painting.

Dorian Gray:
I was wrong. It has destroyed me.

Basil Hallward:
It has the eyes of the Devil!

Dorian Gray:
Each of us has heaven and hell in him.

Basil Hallward:
If this is true... if this is what you've done with your life, it is far worse than anything that's being said of you. Do you know how to pray, Dorian?

Lord Henry Wotton:
What is it that has really happened? Someone has killed herself who loved you. I wish I had had such an experience. The women who have admired me, and there have been some, have always insisted on living long after I've ceased to care for them or them for me.

Lord Henry Wotton:
No civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.

Lord Henry Wotton:
One of the great secrets of life. Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense and discover too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

Lord Henry Wotton:
But adoring someone is certainly better than being adored. Being adored is a nuisance. You'll discover, Dorian, that women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us and keep bothering us to do something for them.

Sir Thomas:
You must admit that women give men the very gold of their lives.

Lord Henry Wotton:
But they invariably want it back in such small change. Women, as a witty Frenchman put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.

Lord Henry Wotton:
I'm analyzing women at present. The subject is less difficult than I was led to believe. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

David Stone:
[Referring to Dorian's shuttered room] What rare things have you stored away there, Dorian?

Dorian Gray:
Skeletons of inquisitive guests.

Dorian Gray:
[Listening to Dorian play the piano] It's wonderful. Did... did you write it?

Dorian Gray:
Fredric Chopin wrote it... for a woman he loved. Her name was George Sand. Someday I'll tell you about it.

Sibyl Vane:
I should like that.

Dorian Gray:
[Playing a couple of notes] What does music mean to you?

Sibyl Vane:
I don't know. It's full of emotion... but it's not happy.

Dorian Gray:
No, it's not happy.

Sibyl Vane:
Why was he unhappy?

Dorian Gray:
[Playing a couple of notes] Perhaps because he felt his youth slipping away from him.

Sibyl Vane:
What an odd thing for you to say.

Dorian Gray:
Why?

Sibyl Vane:
You're so young.

Dorian Gray:
Yes. And you also.

Sibyl Vane:
What is the music called. Has it a name?

Dorian Gray:
Kind of name. It's called... Prelude. [He gets up from the piano and they kiss]

Dorian Gray:
Wait. You must not look at it.

Basil Hallward:
[about to uncover his painting] Not look at my own work? You're not serious. Why shouldn't I look at it?

Dorian Gray:
I don't offer any explanation and do not ask for any. But if you try to look at that picture, Basil, on my word of honor, I will never speak to you again.

Basil Hallward:
What on earth is the matter with you?