A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Have common sense and stick to the point.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say "I don't know."
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
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.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Tolerance is another word for indifference.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
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.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
Writing is the supreme solace.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
- W. Somerset Maugham Quote
