W. Somerset Maugham Quotations | Page 4

Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It is all your material ... Don't wait for experience to come to you; go out after experience. Experience is your material.

The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible.

There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.

Music-hall songs provide the dull with wit, just as proverbs provide them with wisdom.

It is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains and likened the pains of production to the pains of childbirth.

It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.

A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.

The first duty of a woman is to be pretty, the second is to be well-groomed, and the third is never to contradict.

A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.

Women's hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two.