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There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. Somerset Maugham
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W. Somerset Maugham
Age: 90 †
Born: 1874
Born: January 1
Died: 1965
Died: January 1
Army Scout
Literary Critic
Novelist
Physician Writer
Playwright
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Paris
France
W. Somerset Maugham
Somerset Maugham
Unfortunately
Rules
Novel
Three
Writing
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.
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I'd sooner be smashed into a mangled pulp by a bus when we cross the street than look forward to a life like yours.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
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We can none of us step into the same river twice, but the river flows on and the other river we step into is cool and refreshing, too
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I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.
W. Somerset Maugham
In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four.
W. Somerset Maugham
People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.
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When a man's in love, he at once makes a pedestal of the Ten Commandments and stands on the top of them with his arms akimbo. When a woman's in love she doesn't care two straws for Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not.
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When she liked anyone it was quite natural for her to go to bed with him. She never thought twice about it. It was not vice it wasn't lasciviousness it was her nature. She gave herself as naturally as the sun gives heat or the flowers their perfume. It was a pleasure to her and she liked to give pleasure to others.
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Art, unless it leads to right action, is no more than the opium of an intelligentsia.
W. Somerset Maugham
Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.
W. Somerset Maugham
Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
W. Somerset Maugham
Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.
W. Somerset Maugham
No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.
W. Somerset Maugham
The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.
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Sherry, the civilized drink.
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The essential element of love is a belief in its own eternity.
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Do you absolutely despise me, Walter? No. He hesitated and his voice was strange. I despise myself.
W. Somerset Maugham
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