W. Somerset Maugham's Quotes

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.

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

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.

Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

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.

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

Writing is the supreme solace.

You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

The crown of literature is poetry.

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

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

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

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

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

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.

Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.

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.

Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.

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.

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

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

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.

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

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

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

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

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

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

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

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.

It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'

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.

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

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.