W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.

W. Somerset Maugham

• Writing
• Character
• Passion

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Quotes to Explore

• There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

  

  Baltasar Gracian
  • Time
  • Never
  • Word

• I was always under the impression that acting is an innate gift. One of the first things I heard them say at Koothu-P-Pattarai was that actors should realise the art of acting through their training.

  

  Vijay Sethupathi
  • Art
  • Training
  • Gift

• I tour with a piano, actually. Luckily I am able to hire people that deal with it completely and magically a piano appears on stage and then magically disappears when I leave.

  

  Vanessa Carlton
  • People
  • Piano
  • Tour

• Even before it opened its retail arm, Beigh was renowned among pashmina cognoscenti for the quality and complexity of the work produced in its workshop, a large, airy, sunlit rectangle of a room directly across from its second-floor shop.

  

  Hanya Yanagihara
  • Work
  • Quality
  • Complexity

• A lot of people go in and have to create their own characters, and they do fine with it.

  

  D. B. Weiss
  • People
  • Create
  • Go

• Back in the 1960s, I got a superb education for very little money. The bill for my first year at Harpur College in New York was a few hundred dollars.

  

  Camille Paglia
  • Money
  • Education
  • College

• Men are sort of doofuses about sunscreen, and for the most part, women are more inclined to take better care of themselves, but a reminder is always good for everyone.

  

  Landon Donovan
  • Good
  • Men
  • Women

• I was inspired to spend an entire year - my 65th year - reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu's messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

  

  Wayne Dyer
  • Writing
  • Reading
  • Inspired

• Hindi films are so deceptive. I thought Mumbai was this big, grand, beautiful city with sea-facing flats.

  

  Yami Gautam
  • Beautiful
  • City
  • Thought

• Frankly speaking, it's only the script that matters to me the most. If I like the script, then I just commit to myself and go ahead with it. But I also look at the commitment and confidence of the director of the film because it's him who will shape the film.

  

  Vidya Balan
  • Film
  • Confidence
  • Commitment

• Personal responsibility is not only recognizing the errors of our ways. Personal responsibility lies in our willingness and ability to correct those errors individually and collectively.

  

  Yehuda Berg
  • Responsibility
  • Lies
  • Ability

• A lot of people have asked me whether I am a cynic or take a cynical view of politics and are often surprised when I say that I consider myself an optimist, but an optimist dressed in the robes of a realist.

  

  Beau Willimon
  • Politics
  • Realist
  • Optimist

• In high school, the fastest I ever ran was like a 4.67; that's pretty fast. But then, I only weighed 168 pounds.

  

  Gabriel Luna
  • School
  • High
  • Pretty

• I'm incredibly neurotic and a control freak. I like the thought that if there's going to be anyone to blame it's going to be me.

  

  Laura Marling
  • Control
  • Thought
  • Blame

• There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it.

  

  Sam Mendes
  • Good
  • Live
  • Family

• I love showing my scar on my tummy - it is shaped like a question mark.

  

  Sam Taylor-Johnson
  • Love
  • Question
  • Like

• Let me tell you that I love the United States.

  

  Vicente Fox
  • You
  • Tell
  • Let

• There was a door to which I found no key: There was the veil through which I might not see.

  

  Omar Khayyam
  • Door
  • See
  • Key

• You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows.

  

  Louis Malle
  • Work

• Most of the time I believe in letting kids go ahead and make their own mistakes - maybe even get a little hurt - and learn from them.

  

  Brooke Burke
  • Time
  • Believe
  • Kids

• Walk a single path, becoming neither cocky with victory nor broken with defeat, without forgetting caution when all is quiet or becoming frightened when danger threatens.

  

  Kano Jigoro
  • Single
  • Path
  • Broken

• I spent several years in the film finance business, but I returned to what I loved most about the industry - actual filmmaking, producing, writing and directing.

  

  Gabriel Campisi
  • Writing
  • Business
  • Film

• I guess when you write a personal story, people feel compelled to share their own stories.

  

  Darin Strauss
  • People

• If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.

  

  W. Somerset Maugham
  • Writing
  • Character
  • Passion