The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.


W. Somerset Maugham

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
W.SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters.
JEFFREY FRY
I don't feel when I'm writing that I'm drawing from any other writer, but of course I mu...
CHARLES MCCARRY
To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the
personality of the artist; and if that is ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
This is the next chapter in the saga of Somerset, ... We had signed a contract with Somerset for eco...
TOBY MILLER
You don't find interesting stuff because you don't search enough, ... every book has it's own lesson...
DEYTH BANGER
You know, I don't think my music is important, I don't think it's changing the world, I ...
SUFJAN STEVENS
The only thing you ever have is now.
ECKHART TOLLE
The marvelous thing about a joke with a double meaning is that it can only mean one thing.
RONNIE BARKER
A book is like a piece of rope; it takes on meaning only in connection with the things it holds toge...
NORMAN COUSINS
Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the righ...
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
The king may rule the kingdom, but it's the queen who moves the board.
D.M. TIMNEY
At the age of 12 I won the school prize for Best English Essay. The prize was a copy of Somerset Mau...
WILBUR SMITH
The best thing you can do for your kids is to show them God working in you on a daily basis.
CRAIG GROESCHEL
The fear of God is the only cure for the fear of people.
CRAIG GROESCHEL
It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER
There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an ...
ANAïS NIN
There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an ...
ANAIS NIN
Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR.
Rebellion is the only thing that keeps you alive!
MARIANNE FAITHFULL
The only thing you have to know are your words.
EVA GABOR
I think an education is not only important, it is the most important thing you can do with your life...
DEAN KAMEN
I'm still kinda old-school. We're twittering, and we're all twitterers. And we write twe...
BIZ STONE
The most important thing about Spaceship Earth - an instruction book didn't come with it.
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER
It is important that the audience should understand every syllable of every word, for only then can ...
KATE SMITH
Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the m...
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
A person, for example, reads in adulthood a book that is important for him, and it makes him say, "H...
ITALO CALVINO
Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your c...
VINCE GILL
His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha...
TEKOA MANNING
It's nice to look good, but the most important thing is to be you.
NANA MOUSKOURI
Prayer is the most important thing that I do.
WAYNE HUIZENGA
Whatever you make, base it upon that which is most important to you. Only then will it have depth an...
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
It is the experience of living that is important, not searching for meaning. We bring meaning by how...
BERNIE S. SIEGEL
Action has meaning only in relationship, and without understanding relationship, action on any level...
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Calling a book 'young adult' is only important in that it can help get a book to the right r...
ELIOT SCHREFER
It's not important that he has a lot of money... the most important thing is that he invests it in s...
ADRIAN MUTU
The only thing that is obscene is censorship.
CRAIG BRUCE
The only thing I'm allergic to is criticism.
DAVID LEE ROTH
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
VINCE LOMBARDI
The only thing I miss on stage is the falsetto.
BARRY GIBB
(All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes...
JEAN SASSON
The only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die.
CARLOS CASTANEDA
The only thing you can do to make catfish edible is fry them.
BLAKE SHELTON
You can't defend. You can't prevent. The only thing you can do is detect and respond.
BRUCE SCHNEIER
Liberty is the only thing you can't have unless you give it to others.
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
Writing with you is the only thing that keeps me alive.
DAVID HACKWORTH
Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.
ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS
If you are in love it means out of all the riches and jewels in the world you have found the most pr...
GARY F EVANS...
Love is the most important thing in the world. Hate, we should remove from the dictionary.
JOHN WOODEN
There is not a “true” happiness and a “false” happiness. Only happiness and meaning. The key...
JAMES CASTLETON, MD, MENDING OF A BROKEN HEART
The most important thing in arithmetic is not the shapes of the numbers but the reality living in th...
RUDOLF STEINER
If you talk to any pitcher, consistency is the most important thing.
JAMIE MOYER
Time is so important.'so spend time doing something that you love.' make the most of it and Let the ...
NAPZ CHERUB PELLAZO
The most important thing for God is for you to fulfill the purpose He has ordained for you
SUNDAY ADELAJA
Learning is the most important thing, no mater how you do it, or where you do it, or who you do it w...
SAOIRSE RONAN
Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA
The most important thing is to stay positive.
SAKU KOIVU
The most important thing to do is really listen.
ITZHAK PERLMAN
The only thing you can do is research in advance and not book a wedding in key areas or times that h...
CARLEY RONEY
What is needed is not that a religion be true, meaning that what it claims exist beyond the ink it i...
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it ...
C. S. LEWIS
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
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, pe...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM
You're full of contradictions, Ms. Wallace."
I looked up at him and arched a brow. "I'm a girl...
TAMMARA WEBBER
The only way he could have her was to shatter this stubborn faith of hers. In doing so, would he sha...
FRANCINE RIVERS
He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself
LOIS LOWRY
As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. ...
ANTHONY DE MELLO
My family is the most important thing to me.
KIMORA LEE SIMMONS
<...> though he found that if you are stupid enough to bury a camera underground you won't be ...
JON KRAKAUER
The most important thing is God's blessing and if you believe in God and you believe in yourself...
MOHAMED AL-FAYED
It's doesn't just come overnight, you've got to train for it and believe in yourself; th...
MO FARAH
Mother Superior jump the gun...
-The Beatles, Happiness is a Warm Gun
LAUREN MYRACLE
True love is rare, and it's the only thing that gives life real meaning.
NICHOLAS SPARKS
Life has no meaning a priori . Before you come alive, life is nothing; it’s up to you to give it a...
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
When all is said and done the only thing you'll have left is your character.
VINCE GILL
The only thing they can't teach you at art school is art.
DAVID BAILEY
The most important principle of environment is that you are not the only element.
MAHAVIRA
Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity.
WOLE SOYINKA
The only thing that I could think of to do was to be an actress.
SALLY KIRKLAND
The only thing that matters is submitting to the will of God.
MUHAMMAD ALI
The only thing that comes to a sleeping man is dreams.
TUPAC SHAKUR
Drumming was the only thing I was ever good at.
JOHN BONHAM
The only thing scarier than Godzilla is Godzilla's lawyers.
PAUL WATSON
The only thing I can't change is the elasticity of my skin.
MARIE HELVIN
The only thing about 3-D is the dullness of the image.
PETER JACKSON
The only thing as murky as a conspiracy is what's happening in Hollywood.
DAVID GRANN
The only thing I'm running for is the state line.
JAMES CARVILLE
You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best yo...
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you...
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it.
EDWIN LAND
The most important thing in the face is the eyes, and if you can make the eyes talk, you're half...
IAN HOLM
The most important thing is you should not be split or fighting each other.
BHUMIBOL ADULYADEJ
The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater. That's the only principle ...
JAVIER BARDEM
If I provide for this life and turn away from the Lord, I am wise for a moment, but lost forever.
FRANCINE RIVERS
The only way he could have her was to shatter this stubborn faith of hers. In doing so, would he sha...
FRANCINE RIVERS
What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
It is what it is, it is what you make it.
JAMES DURBIN
A school has a different status. There are only about seven schools of dance in the country, and it ...
JORY HANCOCK
That the author is speaking only to us, that he is writing only for us, that no one on Earth has the...
ADAM LANGER

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 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
We didn't think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by butteri...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM