Famous quotations by W. Somerset Maugham
*It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
* Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be
said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
* The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create
as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
* 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.
* We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
* Imagination grows by exercise and contrary to common belief is
more powerful in the mature than in the young.
* We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love.
It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
* 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.
* 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. Failure makes people cruel and bitter.
* 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.
* 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.
* An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier
to give up than the bad ones.
* Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is
to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
