Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. American novels, answered Lord Henry.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the perception and value of American literature through a sarcastic lens.
In this exchange between the Duchess and Lord Henry, Oscar Wilde cleverly compares American novels to dry-goods, suggesting that they are considered commonplace or lacking in depth. This indicates a critique of American literature's perceived quality and artistic merit in contrast to other literary traditions, showcasing Wilde's wit and his views on cultural production.
Themes
LiteratureAmerican NovelsOscar WildeArtCritique
In practice
Example use cases
In a literature class discussing American novels, this quote can illustrate differing opinions on their artistic value.
More from Oscar Wilde
All quotes βLondon is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.
Oscar WildeRead
When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.
Oscar WildeRead
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
Oscar WildeRead
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
Oscar WildeRead
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Oscar WildeRead
Similar quotes
What the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera (the lens) notes with relentless fidelity.
Berenice AbbottRead
Rock is my child and my grandfather.
Chuck BerryRead
What's swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don't have to ask anybody if that's good music or not. You can always feel it.
Miles DavisRead
You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work of art-sculpture or painting-forces your eye.
Clement GreenbergRead
Great art transcends its culture and touches on that which is eternal.
Madeleine L'EngleRead
I have an impulse to write all over the orange walls- I need an alphabet of endings ripped out of books, of hands pulled off of clocks, of cold stones, of shoes filled with nothing but wind.
Jandy NelsonRead