I walked with my eyes on the path, but out of the corners of them I saw a man hiding behind an olive tree. He did not move as we approached, but I fell that he was watching us. As soon as we had passed I heard a scamper. Wilson, like a hunted animal, had made for safely. That was the last I ever saw of him. He died last year. He had endured that life for six years. He was found one morning on the mountainside lying quite peacefully as though he had died in his sleep. From where he lay he had been able to see those two great rocks called the Faraglioni which stand out of the sea. It was full moon and he must have gone to see them by moonlight. Perhaps he died of the beauty of that sight... ---The Lotus Eater
W. Somerset Maugham
Related I knew [in 2002] that he's good. He had the pedigree. He had the personality. I've watched him matur... JOE GOTTFRIED He tried to remember Moon Child's eyes, but was no longer able to. He was sure of only one thing: th... MICHAEL ENDE I saw that he was looking anxious. 'I thought you weren't coming.' As he spoke, he grasped my h... JENNIFER PAYNTER And Harry remembered his first nightmarish trip into the forest, the first time he had ever encounte... J.K. ROWLING I watched the black ocean in his eyes and saw this flash behind them and understood what he had mean... T.J. KLUNE ...He was a greater craftsman even than Isaac, and he knew it, and so, presently, did Isaac. ELIZABETH GOUDGE Hunter woke suddenly. A noise. It was a noise unlike anything he’d ever heard before. Close! ... MICHAEL GRANT Presently comfort came to him, and he thought the she had always given him of her strength though he... ANYA SETON He was a man who was charged with the work he did in life because he was not one to ask questions - ... DOUGLAS ADAMS In one horrible moment the last piece of the prophecy became clear. So bid him take care,... SUZANNE COLLINS Relegated as he was to a corner and as though sheltered behind the billiard table, the soldiers, the... VICTOR HUGO Once the good man was dead, one wore his hat and another his sword as he had worn them, a third had ... G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG This boy," he said, indicating the paintings with one sweep of his arms, "was romantic. He thought t... MARY BALOGH I have a strong memory of the day I was told that my father had a weak heart and that he had to go t... ALAN J. HEEGER Horace’s pulse was racing and adrenaline was surging into his system. But he showed no sign of it.... JOHN FLANAGAN He was inspired, and yet he wants books! He had been preaching for thirty years, and yet he wan... CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON He was beautiful. The knight was beautiful,handsome when he smiled. He didn’t want anyo... RUTA SEPETYS And he could not tell why the struggle was worthwhile, why he had determined to use the utmost himse... F. SCOTT FITZGERALD And Harry saw very clearly as he sat there under the hot sun how people who cared about him had stoo... J.K. ROWLING I called every day to see how he was and finally I called the hospitals here and found out he had di... JOSE LLAMAS He died sober. He died clean for the rest of his life. He ended his life the way we wanted him to be... WALLIS HUTCHKO When Jonathan Winters died, it was like, 'Oh, man!' I knew he was frail, but I always though... ROBIN WILLIAMS He had never liked October. Ever since he had first lay in the autumn leaves before his grandmother'... RAY BRADBURY Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door. His name, as I ought to have told you before, Is reall... T.S. ELIOT My father was gone. I went up to his suite, not to see him, but to figure out if he had been gone or... MONIKA BASILE You're cute in the morning," he told me. "I am?" I asked. "Cute and sweet." KRISTEN ASHLEY He squeezed my shoulder and smiled at me. I realized that I hadn't kissed him hello, I always k... LAURELL K. HAMILTON (On WWI:) A man of importance had been shot at a place I could not pronounce in Swahili o... BERYL MARKHAM Maybe that would be a good thing to do. He wasn't entirely sure, and that bothered him m... EMILY VEINGLORY He died as he lived: working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretc... J.K. ROWLING Sam Temple kept a lower profile. He stuck to jeans and understated T-shirts, nothing that drew atten... MICHAEL GRANT Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many ... THOMAS HARDY He [Cato] used to say that in all his life he never repented but
of three things. The first was th... PLUTARCH What's that you're doing, Sassenach?" "Making out little Gizmo's birth certificate--so fa... DIANA GABALDON I just knew who it was. The light was on and I saw him. He had a ski mask on, but it was all open ..... JOHN GARRETT Yes. Kissing. Overrated." "I could change your mind," Zach said, surprising the hell out ... TRACY SUMNER The rocking of the boat by the waves was soothing but unknown. The men on the shore were asleep. Not... JOSEPH O'NEILL His right hemisphere had died. He knew so many people who had died that in his present state of diss... IAN MCEWAN When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a l... RAY BRADBURY It's a damn shame that when I finally fall in love that it had to be after I died." He dropped his h... JANAE MITCHELL Henry...your father was a brave man." He continued attacking the metal with a sledgehammer, bru... SARAH BLAKLEY-CARTWRIGHT I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me. If I had had wo... MADELINE MILLER For the first and the last time in his life, Corax cried. He cried not for the loss of life, though ... GAV THORPE And I remember when I met him, it was so clear that he was the only one for me. We both knew it, rig... LANA DEL REY Had he but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen... EMMUSKA ORCZY I will go,” he said. “I will go to Troy.” The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of... MADELINE MILLER He never thought he was right. The horror of all that had died under his will had become mundane to ... THOMM QUACKENBUSH During the treatment, we found out he owned a chicken coop and that some of his birds had died in re... RON KRUMER Fireheart tensed, waiting for whatever had hunted down these apprentices to emerge from the trees an... ERIN HUNTER All his life Harry Bosch believed he had a mission. And to carry out that mission he needed to be bu... MICHAEL CONNELLY There was a certain amazement that he had, and up until the day he died, he would talk about how ama... DAVID BERGER I believe in you, my darling. I believe in you." He closed his eyes. And when he opened th... ELIZABETH HOYT Dean had just come from seeing his lawyer. That was the first time that I found out that he had cons... FRED F. FIELDING Garion,' she said very calmly, 'the universe knew your name before that moon up there was spun out o... DAVID EDDINGS Mom?” he whispered. “Dad?” They just looked at him, smiling. And slowly, Harry look... J.K. ROWLING We warn hunters about that during the orientation. It was the last day of the hunt and he apparently... BRIAN MASTENBROOK Oof!" Adam caught me all right, with the side of his head. I could tell by the feel of his skull on ... JENNIFER ECHOLS He was without any comforts of God — no feeling that God loved him — no feeling that God pi... ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE Then again, maybe you couldn't have killed me," he said, crawling out of the stairway. He moved very... PATRICIA BRIGGS Stop fighting me!" he said, trying to pull on the arm he held. He was in a precarious pos... RICHELLE MEAD Saul had gained his six-foot frame at sixteen, but his muscles didn’t arrive until his early twent... MICHAEL BENZEHABE He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to pu... NORA ROBERTS She saw how he was staring at it, the bright red hue beneath her bonnet. She could not bear to see t... CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE Eccolo!” he exclaimed. At the same moment the ground gave way, and with a cry she fell ... E.M. FORSTER It was quiet in the cell. Rubashov heard only the creaking of his steps on the tiles. Six and a half... ARTHUR KOESTLER It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love.<... KURT VONNEGUT JR. He must have known me if he had seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was in the habit of floggin... ANTHONY TROLLOPE It was a pilot flying somewhere in the area that day who saw something I thought was incredibly powe... WESLEY CLARK The whole time I was on 'Grey's,' I'm still reconciling myself to my 11-year-old son... ISAIAH WASHINGTON Across the Reich, the Gestapo recorded increased the activity of anti-state elements. It’s ki... ANTON SCHULZ Did he show himself?” Nash asked, and I glanced to my right to see him staring at my father, as fa... RACHEL VINCENT He thought proudly that many people in his position could not have adjusted, would have gone mad. THOMAS M DISCH Eragon went to see the dragon for the first time since it had spoken to him. He approached apprehens... CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI I went back to my conversation with Siegfried that morning; we had just about decided that the man w... JAMES HERRIOT Naive people tend to generalize people as—-good, bad, kind, or evil based on their actions. Howeve... SHANNON L. ALDER Once again he was aware of eyes staring fixedly at him. He glanced sideways into the long, pointed f... TERRY PRATCHETT He was about to go home, about to return to the place where he had had a family. It was in Godric’... J.K. ROWLING Are you?" I said. "Gay, I mean?" - I hoped he wasn't offended by my asking, b... BRENT HARTINGER He had been haunted his whole life by a mild case of claustrophobia—the vestige of a childhoo... DAN BROWN Where he had failed, I would triumph. Where he had lost his way, I would find the path out of t... CARLOS RUIZ ZAFóN He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army repo... ERICH MARIA REMARQUE Cole,” I said, “do you think I’m lovable?” “As in ‘cuddly and’?” “As in ... MAGGIE STIEFVATER It wasn't as though he didn't have choices. He could have expanded his career, maybe further it with... BOB FULLER But please, please - won't you - can't you give me something that will cure Mother?' Up ... C.S. LEWIS Akinli, this strange boy whose life at the moment seemed to be hanging on this, pushed himself from ... KIERA CASS You're right,' said the corporal. 'It serves editors like that right. They only stir the people up. ... JAROSLAV HAšEK Leo!” Jason was shaking his shoulder. “Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?” Leo’s eyes ... RICK RIORDAN God bless Brad Jones, he feels about as badly as he can feel. The first 30 days I represented him, I... CARL CORNWELL I often wish I'd got on better with your father,' he said. But he never liked anyone who--our f... VIRGINIA WOOLF I saw him play as a freshman. I wasn't sure if he could play varsity. He didn't have the freshman ye... GARY ERNST Me and Evil Harry go way back," said Cohen, rolling a cigarette. "I knew him when he was starting up... TERRY PRATCHETT THERE was a man in our town, and he was wondrous rich; He gave away his millions to the colleges... FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS Wo wei ni xie de,” he said, as he raised the violin to his left shoulder, tucking it under his chi... CASSANDRA CLARE The bravest person I've ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for ... TERRY PRATCHETT My own participation in the campaign was delayed by the death of my son Calvin, which occurred on th... CALVIN COOLIDGE I turned around the corner and saw him starting to scramble. The first time I was coming from behind... ANTWAN PEEK As he looked around the huge ducal bed, he saw everything that meant the world to him. Out... CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE The following obituary appeared in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph of Sept. 16, 1958: A GREA... ROBERT W. SERVICE Relaxing, experiencing nature and laughing are what rejuvenate me and make me feel happy. I believe ... SUI HE Since raised blood pressure is the major cause of stroke, the blood pressure lowering effect of pota... FENG HE
More W. Somerset Maugham
The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Writing is the supreme solace. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, on... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of ligh... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the ba... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, ch... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is another word for indifference. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead beca... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. W SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I learnt that men were moved by a savage egoism, that love was only the dirty trick nature played on... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The writer is more concerned to know than to judge. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantag... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without d... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayer... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me n... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM In the first place it's not true that people improve as you know them better: they don't. That's why... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she ha... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries o... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is fooli... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradic... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great critic...must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, i... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The Americans who are the most efficient people on earth...have invented so wide a range of pithy an... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate m... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clich?s that... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to acc... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made o... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assum... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest p... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammere... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People who ask for your criticism want only praise. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an aut... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the b... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Only a mediocre person is always at his best. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the uni... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tradition is a guide and not a jailer. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasin... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and bef... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepares to take the consequences. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Has it occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a justification of the evil... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense, and you can't make use of the other five without it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Wives are people who feel they don't dance enough. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The well-dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM For the memory of love is sweet, though the love itself were in vain. And what I have lost of pleasu... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The end of culture is right living. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It abs... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifice... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Bo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going dow... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. I... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The crown of literature is poetry. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering f... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pl... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain su... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with i... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that havi... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young ju... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, but few are chosen. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own cou... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persis... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I like manual labor. Whenever I've got waterlogged with study, I've taken a spell of it and found it... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies a... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dep... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the comm... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To write simply is as difficult as to be good. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is funny about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will very often get i... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was young I had an elderly friend who used often to ask me to stay with him in the country. H... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is a dirty trick played on us to achieve the continuation of the species. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We have long passed the Victorian era, when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a ba... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacri... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches them tolerance. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large wi... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actuall... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is only another name for indifference. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by make-believe. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the wo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and wo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty o... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man w... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Life isn't long enough for love and art. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When things are at their worst I find something always happens. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, pe... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to th... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The important thing was to love rather than to be loved. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesth... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for noth... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM