01UndatedWhat d'you suppose I care if I'm a gentleman or not? If I were a gentleman I shouldn't waste my time with a vulgar slut like you.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
02UndatedI 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 / quote ↗
04UndatedIt is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no refutation of the rule. You are puzzled because you cannot get over the idea that pleasures are only of the sense; but, child, a man who dies for his country dies because he likes it as surely as a man eats pickled cabbage because he likes it.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
06UndatedThere are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
08UndatedI write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
09UndatedIf you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
15UndatedEvery production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
16UndatedSome of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
17UndatedI used to listen to the monks repeating the Lord's Prayer; I wondered how they could continue to pray without misgiving to their heavenly father to give them their daily bread. Do children beseech their earthly father to give them sustenance? They expect him to do it, they neither feel gratitude to him for doing so nor need to, and we have only blame for a man who brings children into the world that he can't or won't provide for. It seemed to me that if an omnipotent creator was not prepared to provide for his creatures with the necessities, material and spiritual, of existence he'd have done better not to create them.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
18UndatedYou've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.'Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
19UndatedNo egoism is so insufferable as the Christian with regard to his soul.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
20UndatedSchools are made for the average. The holes are all round, and whatever shape the pegs are they must wedge in somehow. One hasn't time to bother about anything but the average.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
21UndatedWas it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?'The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly.Oh, my dear, it's rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he's in love with you.'Didn't you mean them?'At the moment.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
22UndatedThe only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
23UndatedInsensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
24UndatedHis habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and restless; he was vain of the wider knowledge he had acquired from the perusal of so many books, his mind was alert, and he had not the skill to hide his contempt for his companions' stupidity. They complained that he was conceited; and, since he excelled only in matters which to them were unimportant, they asked satirically what he had to be conceited about. He was developing a sense of humour, and found that he had a knack of saying bitter things, which caught people on the raw; he said them because they amused him, hardly realising how much they hurt, and was much offended when he found that his victims regarded him with active dislike. The humiliations he suffered when he first went to school had caused in him a shrinking from his fellows which he could never entirely overcome; he remained shy and silent. But though he did everything to alienate the sympathy of other boys he longed with all his heart for the popularity which to some was so easily accorded. These from his distance he admired extravagantly; and though he was inclined to be more sarcastic with them than with others, though he made little jokes at their expense, he would have given anything to change places with them.W. Somerset Maugham / quote ↗
