24 Quotes by Jean Lorrain

The fancies that take their monstrous birth from the spinelessness and boredom of usurped wealth bring in their wake every defect ... and though rich men's crimes escape the law, protected as they are by the cowardice of governments and people, Nature, more real than society, sets her anarchic example by abandoning the wretched time servers of Capital to the shame and madness of the worst aberrations.

It is the sheer ugliness and banality of everyday life which turns my blood to ice and makes me cringe in terror.

You see, the strangeness of my case is that now I no longer fear the invisible, I’m terrified by reality.

The charm of horror only tempts the strong

(Priests) cheapjack merchants selling paradise

The beauty of the twentieth century is the charm of the hospital, the grace of the cemetery, of consumption and emaciation. I admit that I have submitted to it all; worse, I have loved with all my heart.

Her vice takes hold of her again, but she still refrains until some moment when, gnawed by some hideous caprice, she comes aground like a mournful wreck ruined by lust, in the midst of her own banal, perfidious pollution.

A strange girl, all phosphorous and cantharides, burning with every desire! And burning with every vice!

But that woman is an encyclopedia!Of all vices, ancient and modern, and terribly interesting to leaf through!