W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
When we come to judge others it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.
Quotes to Explore
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I have a terrible habit of shopping after I go to the gym or hitting eBay.
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I believe that movies are fast becoming antique and dinosauric as a medium. Film is a medium for the over-40s and television has gone the same way. If you're going to look towards the new generation, then of course you're going to have to be a lot more random, spontaneous, irreverent and provocative with your programming.
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My parents were reluctant to let me start auditioning until I was at least a little bit emotionally stable - I'm still working on that! And so I started when I was fifteen, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me in terms of being able to focus my crazy teenage energy into something good.
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There was a special challenge in describing the awful childhood of a person who happens to be my own husband. It was very painful at times, for both of us.
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To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business.
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Africans, we hold on to our youths and whip them into shape.
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Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it.
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I am an ardent supporter of capitalism - but I also understand that while individuals have inalienable, God-given rights, corporations do not.
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Close friends consider me a literary snob.
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I can never believe how much time and energy and money and talent and everything else is being poured into horrible ideas.
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I placed my new novel, 'The Book of Lost Fragrances', in Paris, knowing it would be a challenge. But the book belonged in the city that is one of the greatest perfume capitals of the world and has been since for more than three centuries.
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Whether you're keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it's the same thing. What's important is you're having a relationship with your mind.
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I feel like I should be more in touch with the nuances of this game.
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I grew up in a suburb of Ohio, in a small town, and I resonated with that small-town feeling where everybody knows your business.
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I'm going to always rise above the doubt that may exist about me.
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Islam is fixed, stable, ordered and disciplined, and so are Muslims.
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Fundamentalism - of any variety - is a form of illiteracy, in that it asserts that it is necessary to read only one book.
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The IRS targeting certain groups for harassment because of their politics would be unfair. If we found out the NSA was keeping special tabs on everyone who worshiped at a mosque or took a Bible trip through the Middle East, you'd have an uprising.
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Once you join the queue for the immigration line, pay attention to what the expeditor tells you. Have your papers ready. Don't have your cell phone out. Take off your hat. Open your passport to the page with your photo and present it to the immigration officer already open.
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Just set yourself a goal and try and stick to it. Because you'll always end up better than where you started.
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If you don't pay your taxes and you don't answer the warrant and you don't go to court, eventually someone will pull a gun. Eventually someone with a gun will show up. I want everything the government does to be done, I just want it to be done voluntarily.
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That is just the way with Memory; nothing that she brings to us is complete. She is a willful child; all her toys are broken. I remember tumbling into a huge dust-hole when a very small boy, but I have not the faintest recollection of ever getting out again; and if memory were all we had to trust to, I should be compelled to believe I was there still.
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I think that the essence of a free and civilized society is that everything in it should be subject to criticism, that all forms of authority, should be treated with a certain reservation.
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When we come to judge others it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.
