The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
W. Somerset Maugham

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
W. Somerset Maugham

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
W. Somerset Maugham

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.
W. Somerset Maugham

The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
W. Somerset Maugham

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
W. Somerset Maugham

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
W. Somerset Maugham

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
W. Somerset Maugham

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. Somerset Maugham

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

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

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

To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day.
W. Somerset Maugham

Tolerance is another word for indifference.
W. Somerset Maugham

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
W. Somerset Maugham

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.
W. Somerset Maugham

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.
W. Somerset Maugham

We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
W. Somerset Maugham

We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
W. Somerset Maugham

What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
W. Somerset Maugham