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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.


William Somerset Maugham

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When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, pe...
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PHILIP PULLMAN I have finished To Kill a Mockingbird. It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I alw...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY When a new book comes out or becomes accessible in whatever form, I get it and I read it.
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GARY SINISE The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I re...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I ...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH I think I'm a born storyteller. Inspiration is all around me. I can read a newspaper article and...
JACKIE COLLINS How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
EVANS G. VALENS I was well-read but perhaps that only made me stupid.
RICHARD SMYTH A person, for example, reads in adulthood a book that is important for him, and it makes him say, "H...
ITALO CALVINO That the author is speaking only to us, that he is writing only for us, that no one on Earth has the...
ADAM LANGER I love reading; I really enjoy it. I read books quite fast, which kind of annoys me, but I like it a...
ED OXENBOULD I've only read three books by Stephen King. When I was 10 I read 'The Long Walk,' one of...
LEV GROSSMAN I'd only read a bit of the first book. And I just knew about all the media furor over it. But I'd no...
DAVID THEWLIS Yes, that is true, ... A mutual friend of ours told me that Alexandra wanted to give me that script,...
ISABELLE HUPPERT I'm a bachelor in the old sense of the word, meaning I flirt, I have very many close relationshi...
WILLIAM IVEY LONG The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I re...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH I've only cried at one book, but I'm too embarrassed to tell you which. It wasn't terrib...
REBECCA MAKKAI My next option is to only write a list of the books I like, but then again, I don’t read a book I ...
GENESIS QUIHUIS The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I re...
SIR JAMES GOLDSMITH The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I re...
GEORGE GISSING For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people deter...
WALTER LIPPMANN I read over a hundred books a year and have done so since I was fifteen years old, and every book I'...
NICHOLAS SPARKS When a lot of voices, make up a noise, the man who is silent represents a voice.
APURVA GAGLANI There isn't a book that has changed me, but I have favourites such as 'Pride and Prejudice&#...
CAROLINA HERRERA When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.
NORMAN MAILER When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.
ANZIA YEZIERSKA When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.
NORMAN MAILER I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and I forget when you're close to me, I forget...
CASSANDRA CLARE I'm doing 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'... It was a book I read when I was younger, ...
LOGAN LERMAN It's not like since I make comics I only read comics and since I make movies I will only go out ...
MARJANE SATRAPI Here's my definition of a great beach read - a fabulous story that sucks me in like a black hole...
DOROTHEA BENTON FRANK It had to be a book that held my attention and kept me wanting to read it; when my husband finished ...
RACHEL TUCKER It is good," he thought "to taste for yourself everything you need to know. That worldly pleasures a...
HERMANN HESSE I didn't really like reading much before I did 'The Golden Compass'. But then my teacher...
DAKOTA BLUE RICHARDS I'm very grateful for social media. I think it has shown people my true nature, and through that...
LAURA BENANTI Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a par...
BLACK ELK When I read the Upanishads, which are part of Vedanta, I found a profundity of worldview that made m...
HUSTON SMITH My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it ei...
WILL ROGERS whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn ...
DAVID SEDARIS A truly good book…teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living o...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is now my favourite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another bo...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another boo...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I read less of everything now. With only fond memories of others' work, it will be interesting t...
JONATHAN CARROLL I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my ...
HERMANN HESSE I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems b...
JESSYE NORMAN Then I read the book, 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' and that really got me thinking, ... Until then I hadn't ...
BRAD JARVIS In other words I not only have to read that book, I have to read everything that author wrote.If you...
JOHN IRVING Personally, I am a hedonistic reader; I have never read a book merely because it was ancient. I read...
JORGE LUIS BORGES - I tak nieźle sobie pożyłem.
- Co to za życie? – powiedział ojciec.- Nic tylko kłamstw...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI I used to read five psalms every day - that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chap...
BILLY GRAHAM The last book I read before I wrote my first book - 'Ghosts of Manhattan' - was 'The Gol...
DOUGLAS BRUNT I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight ...
WILL ROGERS I read everything. When I say everything, I read everything: children's literature, Y.A., scienc...
JESMYN WARD I began writing poems when I was about eight, with a heavy assist from my mother. She read me Arthur...
CAROLYN KIZER So, for the most part, I really like when I read a scene that scares me and makes me sweat a little ...
LILY RABE I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight ...
WILL ROGERS Curran's whore comes to visit us," Jarek said in accented English.

The three men laughed ...
ILONA ANDREWS Let me say again that I have not read your book. And one of the reasons I didn't was because I wante...
KEITH BEAUCHAMP I read books for exams at school, but only because I had to read them, and really didn't enjoy i...
RACHEL TUCKER Progress is very good in life,but when our progress becomes a me only affair,it then becomes very ba...
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particuarly long to learn that for yourself. Ther...
NEIL GAIMAN I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belong to you.
SARAH J. MAAS You do what you love, what you need
SARAH J. MAAS You are the blood of the dragon. You can make a hat.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing w...
A.A. MILNE He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain...
SARAH J. MAAS Hodor," said Hodor.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN She made a fence of phrases, which seemed a treachery to herself.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold ...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN The issue isn't whether he loved you, it's how much. Too much. Love can be poison
SARAH J. MAAS I turned.
Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere...
SARAH J. MAAS Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and s...
CARTER CROCKER If we finished our work, the teacher would say, 'Now don't read ahead.' But sometimes I hid the book...
BEVERLY CLEARY Reading has made me more open, has improved my understanding, and has made me a better artiste, but ...
SONAM KAPOOR There was part of me that wanted to see the world and travel to distant places, but I could only do ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN People lose it when I say this, but I'm a novelist who doesn't read novels. There are lots o...
KAREN TRAVISS The book of 'The Hobbit' was given to me to read by a friend of my mother when I was about 1...
CONAN STEVENS I was born into a profession in which my love of words, chosen with care for their meaning and nuanc...
FRANCESCO QUINN Bhulaney ke liay bhi tujhy yaad tu kerna hoga,
Magar her yaad se hain wabasta teri hazaar baata...
HUSEYN RAZA History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN When left alone with her, I ignored her and kept my eyes on my book, though I confess I turned over ...
MARY STREET I doubt I was much of a storyteller, but I would have put that smile in my book. On page 104, right ...
NADèGE RICHARDS I knew how to read a contract by 10 years old, but I didn't know what it meant for somebody to c...
COREY FELDMAN Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give ...
ANNE RICE For me, any book I'm writing is also a chance to get in and research and read and learn things t...
TAD WILLIAMS The Bible was the only book he read. He didn't read it often but when he did he wore his mother's gl...
FLANNERY O'CONNOR You turned your head to the side. Faced me. Your eyes never left mine, I read them with ease. You sa...
ALI LAND Often the adult book is not for you, not yet, or will only be for you when you're ready. But sometim...
NEIL GAIMAN I read a book twice as fast as anybody else. First, I read the beginning, and then I read the ending...
GRACIE ALLEN To read my book, the virgin shy - May blush, while Brutus standeth by: But when he's gone, read thro...
MARCUS AURELIUS If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.
EMILY DICKINSON

More William Somerset Maugham

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well to remember that grammar is common speech formulated
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tradition is a guide and not a jailer
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It wasn't until quite late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, "I don't know
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The value of art is not beauty, but right action
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselve...
WILLIAM 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...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Resignation is the timid sign of courage
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tears are words the heart can't express
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The crown of literature is poetry.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Women's hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is another word for indifference.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Writing is the supreme solace.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actuall...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacri...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men are passionate, men are weak, men are stupid, men are pitiful; to bring to bear on them anything...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but th...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Genius is talent provided with ideals.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there's only one way to do that, he must also f...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We do not write as we want to but as we can
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The strategy to embrace, extend, and extinguish has not necessarily gone away,
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense - and you can't make use of the other five without it
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is only another name for indifference
WILLIAM 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...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantag...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only tha...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The writer is more concerned to know than to judge
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches them tolerance.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is err...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The degree of a nation's civilization is marked by its disregard for the necessities of existence.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are two good things in life freedom of thought and freedom of action
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all of the miserie...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large wi...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries o...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain just...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To write simply is as difficult as to be good
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who w...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate m...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn't be so grossly over-popu...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a senten...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her, but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradic...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The well-dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Only a mediocre person is always at his best
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to acc...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knowswhat they are.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
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 You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me n...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradic...
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 The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
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 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 The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er...
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 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 Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
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 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 If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speec...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dep...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches them tolerance.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
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 It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get...
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 At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
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 Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened ...
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 I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain su...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM No egoism is so insufferable as the Christian with regard to his soul.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I think it may be not unjustly said that Mrs. Barton Trafford fairly ran over with the milk of human...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If 50 million people say something foolish, it is still foolish.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; b...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was one of the queer things of life that you saw a person every day for months and were so intima...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It requires the feminine temperament to repeat the same thing three times with unabated zest.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was like making a blunder at a party; there was nothing to do about it, it was dreadfully mortify...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise. - The Summing Up...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?'

The corners of ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I only wanted to suggest to you that self-sacrifice is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don’t think I shall ever find peace till I make up my mind about things,’ he said gravely. He ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, th...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to per...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM She loved three things — a joke, a
glass of wine, and a handsome man.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at...
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 There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large wi...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering f...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assum...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
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 Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
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 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 It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The end of culture is right living.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It abs...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM