Quotations by Author

W. Somerset Maugham

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children."

I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.

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.

What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.

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.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

The crown of literature is poetry.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.