W Somerset Maugham Quotes

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The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

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.

It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.

In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.

Writing is the supreme solace.

The crown of literature is poetry.

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.

Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.

Have common sense and stick to the point.

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

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.

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

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.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Tolerance is another word for indifference.

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

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.

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

Impropriety is the soul of wit.

It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.

We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.

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.

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.

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.

I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.

Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.

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.

Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.

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.

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

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