She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover her pale, thin face with kisses.


W. Somerset Maugham

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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