W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

It's just as unpleasant to get more than you bargain for as to get less.

Habits are happiness of a sort...

When we got off the streetcar at Times Square, it was somewhat of a letdown. Newspapers were blowing about the road and pavement, and Broadway looked seedy, like a slovenly woman just out of bed.

The basic Roman ruin design is a pile of rocks with a little plaque saying "Roman Ruins" and a group of tourists frowning at it and wishing they were back at the hotel bar.

A day without newspapers is like walking around without your pants on.

The Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next morning, was informed that a youth waited in the hall who gave the name of Sloppy. The footman who communicated this intelligence made a decent pause before uttering the name, to express that it was forced on his reluctance by the youth in question, and that if the youth had had the good sense and good taste to inherit some other name it would have spared the feelings of him the bearer.

I'm young. You can't just sit there and be satisfied.

'Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

In real life, people end up doing things because it's convenient and it works for them. You don't get up every day regretting what you're doing.

No sex is better than bad sex.

Some sigh for this and that; My wishes don't go far; The world may wag at will, So I have my cigar.

Old age is when you resent the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated because there are fewer articles to read.

We flew over to England by the same route Churchill took. It was easy. All we had to do was follow the cigar ashes.

More dreams are destroyed in bed than are ever found there.

The trouble with fulfilling your ambitions is you think you will be transformed into some sort of archangel and you're not. You still have to wash your socks.

A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry to a woman.

It took me some time to learn that although every one secretly cherishes the ambition to be 'put in a book,' no one is ever satisfied with anything save incense, butter, and honey, unrelieved by salt or spice.

I would enjoy experiencing the hollowness of success at first- hand.

I saw a great Newfoundland dog the other day sitting in front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in Regent's Circus, and examining himself with an amount of smug satisfaction that I have never seen equaled elsewhere outside a vestry meeting.

When I was about 15... I made my first attempt as a leading lady, and was, of course, a complete failure.

I make myself a bowl of instant oatmeal, and then I don't do anything for an hour. Why do I need the instant oatmeal? I could get the regular oatmeal and feel productive.

I have a friend who is a juggler. If I'm at his house, I don't like to take food from him, if it's in threes. He has three apples left, I guess I can't have one. I wouldn't want to screw up his practice routine.

America is a country where the Olympics and the divorce lawyers both have the same slogan - Go for the Gold.

It doesn't matter what you're chasing, when you get there you're gonna be like, "Oh, is this all? It kind of sucks."