The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

Women treat us just as Humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them', answered Lord Henry, toying with some fruits. 'I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to us,' murmured Dorian Gray, gravely. 'They create Love in our natures. They have a right to demand it back.

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.

You are more to me than any of them has any idea; you are the atmosphere of beauty through which I see life; you are the incarnation of all lovely things...I think of you day and night. ~ Letter to Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas

Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.

I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel.

He is fairer than the morning star, and whiter than the moon. For his body I would give my soul, and for his love I would surrender heaven.