Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened gives it a poignancy,… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“And sometimes the road was only a lane, with thick hawthorn hedges, and the green elms overhung it on either side so… — W. Somerset Maugham Blue sky Copy Share Image
For men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes place among the other affairs of the day, and the… — W. Somerset Maugham Affair Copy Share Image
“It’s hard not to be impatient with the absurdity of the young; they tell us that two and two make four as… — W. Somerset Maugham Adolescence Copy Share Image
“A man’s work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, and you… — W. Somerset Maugham Real man Copy Share Image
“Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his… — W. Somerset Maugham Communication Copy Share Image
“I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I… — W. Somerset Maugham Husbands Copy Share Image
“But the river, though it flowed so slowly, had still a sense of movement and it gave one a melancholy feeling of… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“What I can do is the only limit of what I may do. Because we are gregarious we live in society, and… — W. Somerset Maugham Justice Copy Share Image
“The best I can suggest is that when the Absolute manifested itself in the world evil was the natural correlation of good.… — W. Somerset Maugham Beauty Copy Share Image
It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“Character? I should have thought it needed a good deal of character to throw up a career after half an hour’s meditation,… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“They seemed to love one another as-I hesitate to say passionately, for passion has in it always a shade of sadness, a… — W. Somerset Maugham Love Copy Share Image
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
“I feel it right to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of such… — W. Somerset Maugham Books Copy Share Image
“Let me be frank just this once, father. I've been foolish and wicked and hateful. I've been terribly punished. I'm determined to… — 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… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“The disadvantages and dangers of the author’s calling are offset by an advantage so great as to make all its difficulties, disappointments,… — W. Somerset Maugham Artist Copy Share Image
“It was strange that Walter with all his cleverness should have so little sense of proportion. Because he had dressed a doll… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“Mr Harrington was a bore. He exasperated Ashenden, and enraged him; he got on his nerves, and drove him to frenzy. But… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“The most insignificant of Strickland's works suggests a personality which is strange, tormented, and complex; and it is this surely which prevents… — W. Somerset Maugham Life Copy Share Image
“They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have… — W. Somerset Maugham Daughters Copy Share Image
“it has this compensation (among, let us admit, not a few others), that sometimes it gives you the opportunity of seeing what… — W. Somerset Maugham Compensation Copy Share Image
“There was something so benign and so friendly in the lady's manner that Catalina felt impelled to tell her sad story. It… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“When I look back now and reflect on that brief passionate love of Red and Sally, I think that perhaps they should… — W. Somerset Maugham Heart and soul Copy Share Image
When I was young I had an elderly friend who used often to ask me to stay with him in the country.… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“Philip himself asked desperately what was the use of living at all. It all seemed inane. It was the same with Cronshaw:… — W. Somerset Maugham High hopes Copy Share Image
Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one… — 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 Age Copy Share Image
“But on the whole the impression was neither of tragedy nor of comedy. There was no describing it. It was manifold and… — W. Somerset Maugham Beginning of life Copy Share Image
“He might have known that she would do this; she had never cared for him, she had made a fool of him… — W. Somerset Maugham Kindness Copy Share Image
As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only… — W. Somerset Maugham Complexity Copy Share Image
I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is… — W. Somerset Maugham Art 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 Adventure Copy Share Image
“All sensible people know that vanity is the most devastating, the most universal, and the most ineradicable of the passions that afflict… — W. Somerset Maugham Love Copy Share Image
Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“The faculty for myth is innate in the human race. It seizes with avidity upon any incidents, surprising or mysterious, in the… — W. Somerset Maugham Human race Copy Share Image
