W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

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.

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.

Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.

Have common sense and stick to the point.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.

It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'

I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.

We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.