W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

I love to see heroes who fuel some kind of moral furnace inside them, who are driven to take on the evils of the world, despite the fact that the evils of the world are more powerful than them. And essentially can never be defeated, but they refuse to bow down. And in order to enjoy that aspect of the hero, you've got to put them through hell.

I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony.

What really makes a hero a hero is if you take that person's hand, and you walk with that person, and they have a lot of weaknesses, but in the end, they overcome all of their obstacles.

Maybe I don't have the patience to make a virtue of necessity - the patience to carry something all the way through, and to actually say something. Lately, the songs are more jagged and they don't really lend themselves to that. I just take it one bit at a time.

I learned that I was able to focus. I've always thought of myself as somebody who is like either it's there or it isn't there. I really worked at this, and I focused, and I was able to replace self-doubt with focus. That was something new for me to say self-doubt is there, but it does not need to be in the front row. You can ask it to take a back seat and replace that front row seat with focus.

Art, especially the stage, is an area where it is impossible to walk without stumbling. There are in store for you many unsuccessful days and whole unsuccessful seasons: there will be great misunderstandings and deep disappointments… you must be prepared for all this, expect it and nevertheless, stubbornly, fanatically follow your own way.

Patient perseverance in well doing is infinitely harder than a sudden and impulsive self-sacrifice.

To hold on, you have to find something you’re willing to die for.

When life descends into the pit I must become my own candle Willingly burning my self To light up the darkness around me.

His [Sam Fuller] self-discipline was amazing. No matter what happened, he'd always go out to his Royal Upright typewriter and just keep working on his stories, his "yarns" as he called them.

PhD, MFA, self-taught - the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity, failure, and success.

Nanda broke down every barrier and won his way to freedom not by brag, not by bluster, but by the purest form of self-suffering.

Art is a war - between ourselves and the forces of self-sabotage that would stop us from doing our work. The artist is a warrior.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish.

Fortunate is the person who has developed the self-control to steer a straight course towards his objectives in life, without being swayed from his purpose by either commendation or condemnation.

Never give up! And remember, determination is as important as talent.

The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word - extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me... and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different... and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it.

Ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough, to keep me from getting to you.

Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in - and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.

...stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when if feels like all you're managing is to shovel sh*t from a sitting position.

My mother was very passionate about life and she would do anything for us. And she had to fight alone to raise us. We never had a lot of money for extras or anything. She had to work six days a week, and then she would do breakfast, lunch and dinner. She was a super-woman! For me, I don't know how she did it with three kids.

To tend, unfailingly, unflinchingly, towards a goal, is the secret of success.

If you have to be careful because of oppression and censorship, this pressure produces diamonds.

It's hard to make a living in any of the arts. When most people think of artists, they think of the stars and the celebrities. But that's such a tiny minority of the elites who are able to make those millions of dollars. The reality is that it's very hard for the rest to make a living as an artist. So, you really have to persevere and understand that achieving the sort of success where you're making the big money is like winning the lottery.

Grub Street turns out good things almost as often as Parnassus. For if a writer is hard up enough, if he’s far down enough (down where I have been and am rising from, I am really saying), he can’t afford self-doubt and he can’t let other people’s opinions, even a father’s, keep him from writing.