W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
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It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
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I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
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The crown of literature is poetry.
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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.
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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.
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It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
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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.
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A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
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Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies.
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If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
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The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
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It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
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In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
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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.
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We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
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Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Writing is the supreme solace.
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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.
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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.
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You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.