793 Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

When things are at their worst, I find something always happens.

Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.

You see, money to you means freedom; to me it means bondage.

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.

People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one or two of his books they feel on peculiarly intimate terms with him; or it may be that they dramatize themselves and, seeing themselves as it were as characters in a novel, are ready to be as open with him as they imagine the characters of his invention are.

If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one.

But the only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you; it may have other and much more profound meanings for the critic, but at second-hand they can be of small service to you.

There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.

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.