Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . .

THE VOICE OF SALOME:Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood?... Nay; but perchance it was the taste of love... They say that love hath a bitter taste... But what matter? What matter? I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth.

Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds of the river, and they carried its message to the sea.

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. World's had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might blow...

For life is terribly deficient in form. Its catastrophes happen in the wrong way and to the wrong people. There is a grotesque horror about its comedies, and its tragedies seem to culminate in farce.

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed and mourning over tragedies that were not my own.

There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies.