Oscar Wilde - Tennessee Williams - Alan Jay Lerner - Doris Lessing - Jane Austen - Mark Twain - Henry van Dyke - F Scott Fitzgerald - Albert Camus - Thomas Hardy - The Smiths -
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. Oscar Wilde
All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction. Oscar Wilde
I know I fib a great deal. After all, a woman’s charm is fifty per cent illusion. Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
Oozing charm from every pore,
He oiled his way around the floor. Alan Jay Lerner, You Did It, 1956 song
What is charm then? The free giving of a grace, the spending of something given by nature in her role of spendthrift ... something extra, superfluous, unnecessary, essentially a power thrown away. Doris Lessing, Particularly Cats, 1967
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. Jane Austen
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. Mark Twain
There is no personal charm so great as the charm of a cheerful temperament. Henry van Dyke
Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction. F Scott Fitzgerald
Charm is a way of getting the answer ‘Yes’ without asking a clear question. Albert Camus
‘He’s charmed by her as if she were some fairy!’ continued Arabella. ‘See how he looks round at her, and lets his eyes rest on her. I am inclined to think that she don’t care for him quite so much as he does for her. She’s not a particular warm-hearted creature to my thinking, though she cares for him pretty middling much – as much as she’s able to; and he could make her heart ache a bit if he liked to try – which he’s too simple to do.’ Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
A jumped-up pantry boy
Who never knew his place.
He said, ‘return the rings’
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
I would go out tonight
But I haven’t got a stitch to wear.
This man said, ‘It’s gruesome
That someone so handsome should care.’
This charming man … The Smiths, This Charming Man