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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Lady Narborough Quotes

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lord Henry makes this response to Lady Narborough, after she tells Henry that everybody she knows says he is very wicked.

When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. When Lady Narborough jokes that she should marry again to be in fashion, Lord Henry makes this observation on the reason men and women marry. Henry assures her that will never marry again as she is far too happy.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lord Henry shares this theory with Lady Narborough, who complains that her late husband Narborough wasn’t perfect. Henry says that if he had been she would not have loved him.

If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lady Narborough says this in response to Lord Henry putting forward the theory that women love men for their defects.

Don’t tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lady Narborough says this to Dorian when he describes life as a great disappointment. She adds: "Lord Henry is very wicked, and I sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good – you look so good." Lady Narborough is a woman who judges only by appearances. So for people like her as long as Dorian continues to look good his morals won’t be questioned. Beautiful people can’t possibly be bad, now can they?

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lord Henry offers his provocative view on happiness and love to Lady Narborough. It is his response to her wish for Dorian to marry a suitable young lady so that they are both happy, saying that she plans to draw up a list of eligible candidates.

I like men who have a future and women who have a past.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lord Henry’s comment to Lady Narborough, who wants Henry to come dine again with her soon and asks him what people he would like to meet so she can make it a "delightful gathering."