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
Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love and imagination are… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination; it is the privilege of the artist that with him it is not as with… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young. — 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
