793 Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.

And I have the sunset, and the Tuscan wine, and the white teeth of the women in Rome. I am a traveler in Romance.

For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.

..as the cosmos are in place, so be it with your life...

It has been said that metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.

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.

The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.

The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own.

It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.