As the end of the century approaches, all our culture is like flies at the beginning of winter. Having lost their agility, dreamy and demented, they turn slowly about the window in the first icy mists of morning,…then they fall down the curtains. – Charles Baudelaire
What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense. – Charles Baudelaire
A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else. – Charles Baudelaire
To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons. – Charles Baudelaire
Instead of plotting the demise of the traditional family, as some politicians and religious leaders would have you believe, gay people mow their lawns and watch American Idol and video their childrens concerts and have the same hopes and dreams that their straight counterparts do. – Jodi Picoult