All these many years I'd thought it [a:Oscar Wilde|3565|Oscar Wilde|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1673611182p2/3565.jpg]'s [b:The Picture of Dorian Gray|1857397|The Picture of Dorian Gray|Oscar Wilde|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1314903532l/1857397.SY75.jpg|1858012] was simply about a painting that aged while its subject didn't.
 That's not wholly accurate. What happens is that the painting shows not only age but the negative side of Dorian Gray's being. The image begins to look cruel and evil as Dorian himself continues to look like an innocent handsome young man.
 Dorian is, by the way, what would now be called an influencer, and I'm waiting for something to come out about a YouTube star whose image and real being contrast in an interesting way.
 This book is so full of quotes that the page immediately inside the front cover references several of them. On nearly every page, though, you can find a Wilde witticism. He was the [a:Fran Lebowitz|8127311|Fran Lebowitz|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1536147926p2/8127311.jpg] of his day, which was the last decades of the nineteenth century. I don't know what the literary device is called, but Wilde uses contradictory balanced exchanges often. A: What about dumb people? B: Dumb people are the smartest of all.
Excerpt:

 "Never marry a woman with straw-colored hair, Dorian," he said, after a few puffs.
 "Why, Harry?"
 "Because they are so sentimental."
 "But I like sentimental people."
 "Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed."
 "I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love. That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice as I do everything you say."