W. Somerset Maugham

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.

Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved conversation because it made him thirsty.

Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.' Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.

I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.

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

There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.

For the complete life, the perfect pattern includes old age as well as youth and maturity.

For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.

You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.

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

You know, when one's in love,' I said, 'and things go all wrong, one's terribly unhappy and one thinks one won't ever get over it. But you'll be astounded to learn what the sea will do.' What do you mean?' she smiled. Well, love isn't a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You'll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable.

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives not by truth but by make-believe.

And I have the sunset, and the Tuscan wine, and the white teeth of the women in Rome. I am a traveler in Romance.

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

No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.

There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.

Imagination grows by exercise.

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

First, cut out all the wisdom, then cut out all the adjectives.

Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.