W. Somerset Maugham Quotes & Sayings (Page 8)

“I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.”

“The crown of literature is poetry.”

“The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.”

“We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.”

“Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.”

“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.”