W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.
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Tahiti is very far away, and I knew that I should never see it again. A chapter of my life was closed, and I felt a little nearer to inevitable death.
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Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
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People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
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There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.
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He had doubts about the utility of examination on subjects which had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted common sense.
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Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
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Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It is all your material ... Don't wait for experience to come to you; go out after experience. Experience is your material.
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D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
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The value of money is that with it we can tell any man to go to the devil. It is the sixth sense which enables you to enjoy the other five.
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Passion doesn't count the cost. … Passion is destructive.
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What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
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We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.
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He had a bitter pain in his heart, for he knew that she was still a stranger to him and his hungry love was destined ever to remain unsatisfied.
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Of course it was cause and effect, but in the necessity with which follows the other lay all tragedy of life.
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When she liked anyone it was quite natural for her to go to bed with him. She never thought twice about it. It was not vice; it wasn't lasciviousness; it was her nature. She gave herself as naturally as the sun gives heat or the flowers their perfume. It was a pleasure to her and she liked to give pleasure to others.
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He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
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An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.
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Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.
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You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
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She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.
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He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.
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Culture is not just an ornament; it is the expression of a nation's character, and at the same time it is a powerful instrument to mould character. The end of culture is right living.
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You will have to learn many tedious things,...which you will forget the moment you have passed your final examination, but in anatomy it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.