“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde
Wilde wrote this line for Lord Darlington in 'Lady Windermere's Fan,' which premiered at the St James's Theatre in London on February 20, 1892. The play was his first theatrical triumph and ran for months.
When I stood in the dock at the Old Bailey in 1895, I knew my world was ending. Friends vanished. My name became an insult. But even in Reading Gaol, I looked upward. I wrote. I refused to stop seeing beauty. Whatever gutter life throws you into, lift your eyes. The stars do not care who is watching. They shine for everyone.