“How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. … If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that —for that —I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic philosophical novel that explores themes of aestheticism and double lives. It is the only novel written by Wilde, and one of his major and most controversial works.
