W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham CHwas a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth25 January 1874
thinking may doe
The novel may stimulate you to think. It may satisfy your aesthetic sense. It may arouse your moral emotions. But if it does not entertain you it is a bad novel.
may saint sin
The inclination to digress is human. But the dramatist must avoid it even more strenuously than the saint must avoid sin, for while sin may be venial, digression is mortal.
government may needs
It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.
art may clique
An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.
art may emotion
Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.
carry discovered earliest nonsense wiser
From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
english expect hope perfection women
Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to find in their butlers.
happens love man woman
Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other.
befall boy bring consequences few worse
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
cute chance life-is
Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.
love men knows
Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.
knows rules three writers-and-writing
There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.
assumed clinging conscious difference duchess lady order persons rank station
Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assume with their inferiors in order to show them that they are not in the least conscious of any difference in station between them.
illusion lost youth
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it.