Maugham Quotes

“But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

Was that so depressing?

Who knows? Maybe that was 'despair.' What Turgenev called 'disillusionment.' Or Dostoyevsky, 'hell.' Or Somerset Maugham, 'reality.' Whatever the label, I figured it was me.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“How strange was the relation between parents and children! When they were small the parents doted on them, passed through agonies of apprehension at each childish ailment, and the children clung to their parents with love and adoration; a few years passed, the children grew up, and persons not of their kin were more important to their happiness than father or mother. Indifference displaced the blind and instinctive love of the past. Their meetings were a source of boredom and irritation. Distracted once at the thought of a month's separation they were able now to look forward with equanimity to being parted for years.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil

“The most difficult thing for a wise woman to do is to pretend to be a foolish one.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Mrs Craddock

“Quizá cuando su vida acabe no deje de su paso por la tierra señales más profundas que las que un canto arrojado al río deja sobre la superficie del agua.”
― William Somerset Maugham

“I've been quite happy. Look, here are my proofs. Remember that I am indifferent to discomforts which would harass other folk. What do the circumstances of life matter if your dreams make you lord paramount of time and space?”
― W. Somerset Maugham

“Mrs Davidson was saying she didn't know how they'd have got through the
journey if it hadn't been for us," said Mrs Macphail, as she neatly
brushed out her transformation. "She said we were really the only people
on the ship they cared to know."

"I shouldn't have thought a missionary was such a big bug that he could
afford to put on frills."

"It's not frills. I quite understand what she means. It wouldn't have
been very nice for the Davidsons to have to mix with all that rough lot
in the smoking-room."

"The founder of their religion wasn't so exclusive," said Dr Macphail
with a chuckle.

William Somersert Maugham, "Rain”
― William Somersert Maugham

“People wonder at the romantic lives of poets and artists, but they should rather wonder at their gift of expression. The occurrences which pass unnoticed in the life of the average man in the existence of a writer of talent are profoundly interesting. It is the man they happen to that makes their significance.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook

“It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is”
― W Somerset Maugham

“But she looked well and healthy and full of beans.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale

“Ivo had grown more and more like one of those characters in his books who are always groaning about their miserable fate in helplessly loving someone unworthy of their love. Maugham never says much about what that’s like for the poor old unworthy object. I could have told him. It’s not exactly uplifting for the self-image.”
― Barbara Vine, No Night is Too Long