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A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence.
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
Great
Preserves
Things
Novelists
Consequence
Importance
Belief
Considers
Common
Childlike
Sense
Novelist
Must
Preserve
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.
W. Somerset Maugham
Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
W. Somerset Maugham
Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.
W. Somerset Maugham
The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
W. Somerset Maugham
He exulted in the possession of himself once more he realized how much of the delight of the world he had lost when he was absorbed in that madness which they called love he had had enough of it he did not want to be in love anymore if love was that.
W. Somerset Maugham
I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.
W. Somerset Maugham
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
But I am not sure it would contain any short stories. For the short story is a minor art, and it must content itself with moving, exciting and amusing the reader. ...I do not think that there is any (short story) that will give the reader that thrill, that rapture, that fruitful energy which great art can produce.
W. Somerset Maugham
She [Sadie Thompson] gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her answer. You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!
W. Somerset Maugham
You must not pursue a success, but fly from it.
W. Somerset Maugham
The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
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
Never pause unless you have a reason for it, but when you pause, pause as long as you can.
W. Somerset Maugham
You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.
W. Somerset Maugham
Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.
W. Somerset Maugham
Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.
W. Somerset Maugham
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
It needs a good deal of philosophy not to be mortified by the thought of persons who have voluntarily abandoned everything that for the most of us makes life worth living and are devoid of envy of what they have missed. I have never made up my mind whether they are fools or wise men.
W. Somerset Maugham
It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
W. Somerset Maugham
