Quote

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

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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
World
Source
Refuge
Either
Formed
Reading
Providing
Real
Disappointment
Every
Bitter
Insensibly
Make
Thus
Unreal
Would
Habit
Distress
Life
Creating
Delightful

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A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
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A good Havana is one of the best pleasures that I know.
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People who ask for your criticism want only praise.
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I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
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Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?' The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly. Oh, my dear, it's rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he's in love with you.' Didn't you mean them?' At the moment.
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Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
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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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Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
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In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that hides their faces.
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Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.
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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.
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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.
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The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable.
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The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible.
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There was once a professor of law who said to his students. When you are fighting a case, if you have facts on your side hammer them into the jury, and if you have the law on your side hammer it into the judge. But if you have neither the facts nor the law, asked one of his listeners? Then hammer the hell into the table, answered the professor.
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The nature of men and women - their essential nature - is so vile and despicable that if you were to portray a person as he really is, no one would believe you.
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Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened gives it a poignancy, touches a chord, which a piece of acknowledged fiction misses. It is to touch this chord that some authors have done everything they could to give you the impression that they are telling the plain truth.
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I can only guess that it made the world he went back to...strangely without meaning. Though he lived in it, though he even enjoyed it, it remained utterly remote. I think it had lost sense for him. In his heart was the reflection of a lovely dream that he could never quite recall.
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The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
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We didn't think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by buttering him up. It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery. I should have thought the worship most pleasing to him was to do your best according to your lights.
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