Quote

A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.

W. Somerset Maugham

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Needs
Imagination
Likely
Kind
Experience
Kinds
Like
Facts
Lead
Mutton
Order
Taste
Chop
Need
Unless
Devour
Whole
Gets
Tastes
Right
Writer
Sheep
Must
Least
Nonsense

More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

Image
We Americans... like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
In heaven, when the blessed use the telephone they will say what they have to say and not a word besides.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
We do not write because we want to we write because we have to.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
I'm afraid you've thought me a bigger fool than I am.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
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
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
It is astonishing how many books I find there is no need for me to read at all.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
The most valuable thing I have learned from life is to regret nothing.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death's own hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to live any longer.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
Women's hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
W. Somerset Maugham