But there are people who take salt with their coffee. They say it gives a tang, a savour, which is peculiar and… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“You have a hierarchy of values; pleasure is at the bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“And if I am not mistaken here is the secret of the greatness that was Spain. In Spain it is men that… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
The normal is what you find but rarely. The normal is an ideal. It is a picture that one fabricates of the… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result of innumerable rebuffs. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh,… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
The value of culture is its effect on character. It avails nothing unless it ennobles and strengthens that. Its use is for… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“Most of these stories are on the tragic side. But the reader must not suppose that the incidents I have narrated were… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“A virtue that only causes havoc and unhappiness is worth nothing. You can call it virtue if you like. I call it… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“Humility is a virtue that is enjoined upon us. So far as the artist is concerned, with good reason; indeed, when he… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give... You will find that people forget the… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
It has amazed me that the most incongruous traits should exist in the same person and, for all that, yield a plausible… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Culture is not just an ornament; it is the expression of a nation's character, and at the same time it is a… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“It may be that in his rogues the writer gratifies instincts deep-rooted in him, which the manners and customs of a civilised… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Failure make people bitter and cruel. Success improves the character of the man. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
He is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“A man thinks it quite natural that he should fall out of love with a woman, but it never strikes him for a moment… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“A man's work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, but in his book… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“There is no more merit in having read a thousand books than in having ploughed a thousand fields.” — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“I wanted to live again and again. I was willing to accept every sort of life, no matter what its pain and sorrow; I… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“His love became a prison from which he longed to escape, but he had not the strength merely to open the door-that was all… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
