793 Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

I’ve always been interested in people, but I’ve never liked them.

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one’s own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody’s else advice.

A man ought to work. That’s what he’s here for. That’s how he contributes to the welfare of the community.

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

I like manual labor. Whenever I’ve got waterlogged with study, I’ve taken a spell of it and found it spiritually invigorating.

A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn’t pretty it won’t do her much good.

The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so, and by the manipulation of his plot, he can engage the reader’s attention so that he does not perceive the violence that has been done to him.

I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul’s good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.