“Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.”
― Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde including the Ballad of Reading Gaol
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.”
― Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde including the Ballad of Reading Gaol
“When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I daresay, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life.”
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they're better.”
― Lady Windermere's Fan
― Lady Windermere's Fan
“That is why I write - to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.”
― By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
― By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
“I fell in love with her when we were together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years we were apart.”
― Dear John
― Dear John
Dedeev’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Dedeev’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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