Yes Oscar. It is very important to be Earnest.

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

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891, preface

I have always claimed to be uniquely dualistic. I suppose I am not as unique as I once thought. This quote describes my exact feelings toward my own morality in relation to the literature I read and love. If a book, poem, short story, etc. is well written and moves me, I will cherish it. But it can in no way sway me from the very clear boundaries of my faith.


I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

Oscar Wilde

Simply put. I do this very thing every time I write. It goes from proof to proof, through edit and edit.

I have read almost everything Oscar Wilde has written. He makes me laugh and think and yearn. I love his work. Almost every line he has written is quotable, and these are just a couple out of the dozens of his lines that have been ingrained eternally in my being, as a writer.

Have you a writer who has inspired your work? or who continues to surprise and enthrall you even after hundreds of times reading his/her works?