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" There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Knows
Novel
Rules
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" Only a mediocre person is always at his best. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Person
Only
Always
" It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Best
You
Anything
" The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Lasts
Returned
Never
" The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Useful
Principle
Most
" Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Puppets
String
Which
" The writer is more concerned to know than to judge. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Judge
Know
More
" Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered. "
W. Somerset Maugham
See
Land
Day
" The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Kind
People
Success
" My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Horror
Life
Belief
" You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Angry
Humor
Laugh
" I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Myself
Short
Life
" Impropriety is the soul of wit. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Soul
Wit
Humor
" At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Talk
Dinner
Eat
" There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Universe
Evil
Order
" Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way. "
W. Somerset Maugham
You
Rubs
Way
" Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad. "
W. Somerset Maugham
People
Through
Bad
" Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Perfection
Dull
Better
" 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. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Me
Book
Eyes
" Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Living
Death
Dead
" In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Time
City
Darkness
" It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Seems
Perfection
Together
" It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Thought
Day
Pity
" Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Boy
Bring
Mother
" Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Tell
Only
Make
" You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Say
Reputation
Good
" An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Bad
Give
Good
" If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Lose
Freedom
Values
" It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Trying
People
Good
" A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing. "
W. Somerset Maugham
He
Because
Home
" We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others. "
W. Somerset Maugham
Learn
Others
Our