W. Somerset Maugham

Impropriety is the soul of wit.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Writing is the supreme solace.

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Desire is sad.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Imagination grows by exercise.

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The day broke gray and dull.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Sherry, the civilized drink.

— W. Somerset Maugham

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The devil is a good actor," smiled Domingo.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

— W. Somerset Maugham

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Men have always formed gods in their own image.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness.

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him.

— W. Somerset Maugham

“We are foolish and sentimental and melodramatic at twenty-five, but if we weren’t perhaps we should be less wise at fifty.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

“When people say they do not care what others thing of them, for the most part they deceive themselves”

— W. Somerset Maugham

An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.

— W. Somerset Maugham

The humour of Dostoievsky is the humour of a barloafer who ties a kettle to a dog's tail.

— W. Somerset Maugham

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.

— W. Somerset Maugham

It is astonishing how many books I find there is no need for me to read at all.

— W. Somerset Maugham

I've met so many people, often the scum of the earth, and found them, you know, quite decent. I am an uncomfortable…

— W. Somerset Maugham

But the only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you; it may have other and much more…

— W. Somerset Maugham

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Other men, with no more advantages than he, succeeded, and others again, with many more, failed. It seemed pure chance. The rain…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“MERESTON: But you break my heart. LADY FREDERICK: My dear, men have said that to me ever since I was fifteen, but…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“It was as though the house had been left empty but a minute before and yet that minute was fraught with eternity…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The time has passed when he was an object of ridicule, and it is no longer a mark of eccentricity to defend…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“How strange was the relation between parents and children! When they were small the parents doted on them, passed through agonies of…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“There is nothing so difficult as to persuade men that they are ignorant. Bertha, exaggerating the seriousness of the affair, thought it…

— W. Somerset Maugham

It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless…

— 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

One does not really feel much grief at other people's sorrows; one tries, and puts on a melancholy face, thinking oneself brutal…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“I hate you. I wish you was dead." Mrs. Carey gasped. He said the words so savagely that it gave her quite…

— 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 one should only…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Perhaps it would have been possible to see in him a new Prometheus...the hero who for the good of mankind exposes himself…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The past was finished; let the dead bury their dead.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

— W. Somerset Maugham