W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
-
Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
-
Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.
-
There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
-
Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
-
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
-
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
-
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
-
The crown of literature is poetry.
-
The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
-
If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
-
You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
-
It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
-
From the earliest time the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
-
I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.
-
A god that can be understood is not a god.
-
It may be that if I lead the life I've planned for myself it may affect others; the effect may be no greater than the ripple caused by a stone thrown in a pond, but one ripple causes another.
-
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
-
Writing is the supreme solace.
-
What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
-
If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
-
It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
-
A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
-
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
-
The day broke grey and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child's bed.