Everyone in a decadent society, Lorrain urges, is guilty. Everyone loves masking murder and everyone takes masochistic pleasure in the risk of discovery and punishment. - Jennifer Birkett
The mask of art is the means through which corruption is spread. The mask makes vice seem beautiful, turns squalor and nastiness into glamorous thrill, seduces the onlooker into the game – and leaves him or her with the corpse on his hands. - Jennifer Birkett
The decadent artist markets other people's pain - Jennifer Birkett
Art makes murder into the supreme image of Beauty and in doing so sets free the vengeful God. (referring to Jean Lorrain's LE VICE ERRANT) - Jennifer Birkett
Art serves to confront that which is outside order, to give form to the obscene. In the process, it opens it to transformations that can not only make it safe for public consumption, not a powerful vehicle through which to address the public imagination. - Jennifer Birkett