W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
English dramatist & novelist.
(1874 - 1965)
"At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely."
"It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up."
"She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit."
"Tradition is a guide and not a jailer."
"When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully."
"When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me."
"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it."
"People ask for criticism, but they only want praise."
"There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
"The important thing was to love rather than to be loved."
"Life isn't long enough for love and art."
"Genius is talent provided with ideals."
"Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner."
"If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech."
"Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five."