Quotes By W. Somerset Maugham

When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.

In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.

It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.

Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

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.

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.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.

Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.

It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.

It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.

Writing is the supreme solace.

Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.