W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.
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People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
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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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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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I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
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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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An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.
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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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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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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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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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I held my breath, for to me there is nothing more awe-inspiring than when a man discovers to you the nakedness of his soul.
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Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...
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The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
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They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him.
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Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.
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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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The life force is vigorous. The delight that accompanies it counter-balances all the pains and hardships that confront men. It makes life worth 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.
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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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He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
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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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I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.