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What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?
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
Resignation
Illusions
Allowed
Illusion
Asks
Keep
Others
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
You cannot write well or much (and I venture the opinion that you cannot write well unless you write much) unless you form a habit.
W. Somerset Maugham
The inclination to digress is human. But the dramatist must avoid it even more strenuously than the saint must avoid sin, for while sin may be venial, digression is mortal.
W. Somerset Maugham
The humorist has a good eye for the humbug he does not always recognize the saint.
W. Somerset Maugham
A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.
W. Somerset Maugham
The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
W. Somerset Maugham
She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover her pale, thin face with kisses.
W. Somerset Maugham
We find things beautiful because we recognize them and contrariwise we find things beautiful because their novelty surprises us.
W. Somerset Maugham
Our natural egoism leads us to judge people by their relations to ourselves. We want them to be certain things to us, and for us that is what they are because the rest of them is no good to us, we ignore it.
W. Somerset Maugham
There's no one as transparent as the person who thinks he's devilish deep.
W. Somerset Maugham
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
But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.
W. Somerset Maugham
What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.
W. Somerset Maugham
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
W. Somerset Maugham
The officers saluted as she passed and gravely bowed. They walked back across the courtyard and got into their chairs. She saw Waddington light a cigarette. A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
It requires the feminine temperament to repeat the same thing three times with unabated zest.
W. Somerset Maugham
Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
W. Somerset Maugham
Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves what everyone else believes.
W. Somerset Maugham
