Preface to 'A Picture Of Dorian Gray' By Oscar Wilde

Exam time is the most productive(well...what is conventionally called productive) time for me. The people are so busy studying, I have no one to Lukkha with. And since I have no inclination at all to study, it offers me a great oppurtunity to explore 'stuff'. This is a piece I read today and it intrigued me so much that I have been reading it over and over and have not been able to proceed to the text of the novel. Well here it is...



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The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.

This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.

No artist has ethical sympathies.

An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.

Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.

From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

I Want To Break Free

Time flies by, nothing is lost.
No wound inflicted. No biting fronst.
No dark memory. No stone in the heart.
Nothing to win and nothing to start.

Still this life's an empty hall.
I scream, I grope, to nothing I call.
Outside, a race of roaring beasts.
This spirit not searches nor believes.

Friendship and love and expectations and heartbreak....

This heart longs for love.
Little by little it bleeds.
In waiting for "the one"
Faithful melodies it sings.

Huge love it begets..
From family, friends, so lovely.
But still it yearns for Her,
Her loving her inspiring eyes.

I guess the heart is never free.
Coz it doubts the love of all.
It wants too much of it.
Expects it to come from one and all.

And when that one special friend.
Comes along to love you.
Your heart clings on.
Clings onto them too hard.

This heart will want to know
All your dreams and hopes.
So you think in yourself...
You forget its only human.

I guess that is why it hurts.
So much when she says.
"I have to go, talk to u later".
Even when it knows...

She is not mine to own.....
She is not mine to own...

I just watched the part of walk to remember where he makes her stand at "two places at once" and tatoos the butterfly on her shoulder. .....love......it eludes me.



i have a friend i love....
i told her that i did...
i dont know if i should have....
she might take it wrong.

love, this thing eludes me....
why is it so different...
to all people who care to think
why is it so strange...

what is the difference i think
in love of lovers and of friends...
why does one have to clarify....
"i love you"......(as a friend)

it makes the meaning of the word
sound suspicious and insane.
it makes it sound low and ugly...
when it actually is so pure.

so i told her today....
"i love you" ...that is all...
i hope she understood it
for what it really stands...


i am no wise man.....i am only a crazy lover.... :)