W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 16

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• No woman is worth more than a fiver unless you're in love with her. Then she's worth all she costs you.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Women, Cost

  W. Somerset Maugham (2011). “A Writer's Notebook”, p.66, Random House

  5 Copy quote

• The day broke grey and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child's bed.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Children, Book, Sleep

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.3, Diversion Books

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• For the complete life, the perfect pattern includes old age as well as youth and maturity.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Maturity, Perfect, Age

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Rain, Unjust

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.732, Diversion Books

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• There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Perfect, Comfort, Picnics

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• It takes two to make a love affair and a mans meat is too often a woman's poison.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Love, Two, Meat

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Men, Copernicus, Bears

  "A Writer's Notebook (1901)". Book by W. Somerset Maugham, 1946.

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• Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter's mind. It was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Dark, Night, Giving

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• 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

  Art, Moving, Thinking

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• You know, when one's in love,' I said, 'and things go all wrong, one's terribly unhappy and one thinks one won't ever get over it. But you'll be astounded to learn what the sea will do.' What do you mean?' she smiled. Well, love isn't a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You'll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Mean, Thinking, Sea

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• I can only guess that it made the world he went back to...strangely without meaning. Though he lived in it, though he even enjoyed it, it remained utterly remote. I think it had lost sense for him. In his heart was the reflection of a lovely dream that he could never quite recall.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Change, Dream, Memories

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• Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of Assassins by means of drugs, beautiful women, lush gardens, and religious promises. The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Beautiful, Religious, Giving Up

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• All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights, and, when they are not treated as they think they should be, will by well-directed shafts, constantly repeated, poison the minds of their patrons against those who have provoked their animosity. It is well to keep in with them.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Thinking, Mind, Important

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• The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Looks

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• 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.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Hero, Talking, People

  "A Writer's Notebook" by W. Somerset Maugham, Country Life Press, (p. 196), 1949.

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• The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Beauty, Names, Ideals

  W. Somerset Maugham (1930). “Cakes and Ale”

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• There is no need for the writer to eat a whole sheep to be able to tell you what mutton tastes like. It is enough if he eats a cutlet. But he should do that.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Sheep, Needs, Able

  W. Somerset Maugham (2011). “A Writer's Notebook”, p.230, Random House

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• Women are strange little beasts,' he said to Dr. Coutras. 'You can treat them like dogs, you can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Of course, it is one of the most absurd illusions of Christianity that they have souls.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Dog, Love You, Soul

  W. Somerset Maugham (2012). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.153, Courier Corporation

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• and he loved her suddenly because she loved him.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  W. Somerset Maugham (2013). “The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection”, p.1626, eBookIt.com

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• Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even though the future was so dim, it was iridescent like the mist over the river where the morning sun fell upon it. Freedom! Not only freedom from a bond that irked, and a companionship which depressed her; freedom, not only from the death which had threatened, but freedom from the love that had degraded her; freedom from all spiritual ties, the freedom of a disembodied spirit, and with freedom, courage , and a valiant unconcern for whatever was to come.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Spiritual, Morning, Heart

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• Sherry, the civilized drink.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Wine, Drink, Sherry

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• But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Beautiful, Pain, Ideas

  W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “Of Human Bondage”, p.1260, The Floating Press

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• The mathematician who after seeing Phedre asked: 'Qu'est que ca prouve?' was not such a fool as he has been generally made out. No one has ever been able to explain why the Doric temple of Paestum is more beautiful than a glass of cold beer except by bringing in considerations that have nothing to do with beauty.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Funny, Beauty, Beautiful

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• A good Havana is one of the best pleasures that I know.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Luxury, Pleasure, Havana

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• 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

  Wise, Philosophy, Men

  W. Somerset Maugham (1941). “the Gentleman in the Parlour”

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