But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true romantic, background was everything, or almost everything.

An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.

Credit is a young man's capital.

Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life.

The ancient historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the modern novelist presents us with dull facts under the guise of fiction.

If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.

And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.