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I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.

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
Time
Tables
Novel
Written
Catalogue
Half
Catalogues
Read
Entertaining
Nothing
Sooner
Much
Novels
Would
Table

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There are times when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity. I recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?
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A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.
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A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.
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Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi.
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It takes two to make a love affair and a mans meat is too often a woman's poison.
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Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
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I could have forgiven it if he'd fallen desperately in love with someone and gone off with her. I should have thought that natural. I shouldn't really have blamed him. I should have thought he was led away. Men are so weak, and women are so unscrupulous.
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So long as some are strong and some are weak, the weak will be driven to the wall.
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One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.
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Her tears were partly tears of happiness, for she felt that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved him now with a new love because he had made her suffer.
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There are many foolish people in the world and when a man in a rather high position puts on no frills, slaps them on the back, and tells them he'll do anything in the world for them, they are very likely to think him clever.
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First, cut out all the wisdom, then cut out all the adjectives.
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Life isn't long enough for love and art.
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The life force is vigorous. The delight that accompanies it counter-balances all the pains and hardships that confront men. It makes life worth living.
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Perhaps it would have been possible to see in him a new Prometheus...the hero who for the good of mankind exposes himself to the agonies of the damned...undaunted by failure, by an unceasing effort of courage holding despair at bay, doggedly persistent in the face of self-doubt, which is the artist's bitterest enemy.
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You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
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By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him.
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Why did you look at the sunset?' Philip answered with his mouth full: Because I was happy.
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The good traveler has the gift of surprise.
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People are always a little disconcerted when you don't recognize them, they are so important to themselves, it is a shock to discover of what small importance they are to others. [The human element]
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