Quotes from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“It is strange, is it not, how a person can adore one's soul so much that they adore one's body also?”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“Some drink to forget, I drink to remember. I drink in order to understand what I mean and to discover what I know. Under its benign influence all the stories and dramas which properly belong to the sphere of art are announced by me in conversation.”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“absinthe removes the bitter taste of failure and grants me strange visions which are charming principally because they cannot be written down. Only in absinthe do I become entirely free and, when I drink it, I understand the symbolic mysteries of odour and of colour.”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines.”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“But just as my philosophy had ceased to interest me as soon as it was formulated into a set of principles so, when I saw myself being imitated, I realised at once what an incubus my aesthetic personality might become if I were to be trapped within it. Imitation changes, not the impersonator, but the impersonated.”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“I can recall quite clearly the journey from Omaha to San Francisco which I made with the opera troupe; God had created the world in less time than it took us to travel across America.”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“the great advantage of really contemporary fiction is that one finds oneself mirror on every page”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

“the great advantage of really contemporary fiction is that one finds oneself mirrored on every page”
― Peter Ackroyd, quote from The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

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Popular quotes

“In all my life,” Ernestino said, “I have never heard a voice like that. God has touched you, Signore. But sing while you can, because it won’t be long before those high notes leave you forever.”
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“Good heavens,’ cried Mr White. ‘To fire great iron balls at people you have never even spoken to – barbarity is come again.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from H.M.S. Surprise

“Laurie piped up again. 'At State, everybody calls diversity dispersity. What happens is, everybody has their own clubs, their own signs, their own sections where they all sit in the dining hall--all the African Americans are over there? . . . and all the Asians sit over't these other tables? -- except for the Koreans? -- because they don't get along with the Japanese so they sit way over there? Everybody's dispersed into their own little groups -- and everybody's told to distrust everybody else? Everybody's told that everybody else is trying to screw them over--oops!' -- Laurie pulled a face and put her fingertips over her lips -- 'I'm sorry!' She rolled eyes and smiled. 'Anyway, the idea is, every other group is like prejudiced against your group, and no matter what they say, they're only out to take advantage of you, and you should have nothing to do with them -- unless your white, in which case all the others are not prejudiced against you, they're like totally right, because you really are a racist and everything, even if you don't know it? Everybody ends up dispersed into their own like turtle shells, suspicious of everybody else and being careful not to fraternize with them. Is it like that at Dupont?”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from I am Charlotte Simmons

“You mean...” Billy exclaimed at last, “you mean...” – his voice rose high and clear – “you mean...” – and he jumped to his feet, and standing there under the giant trees, pointed at himself, a small outraged boy named William Martin Quarrier, aged eight: “You mean I just came crashing down into Ma’s under-pants?”
― Peter Matthiessen, quote from At Play in the Fields of the Lord

“Our love of life is only an old liaison of which we do not know how to rid ourselves. Its strength lies in its permanence. But death which severs it will cure us of the desire for immortality.”
― Marcel Proust, quote from The Captive & The Fugitive

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.