W. Somerset Maugham: Making

“A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her,” he said, “but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 41, p. 142

Forgiveness

“Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.”

W. Somerset Maugham

'"The Treasure"
Short Stories

Marriage , Thinking

“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.”

W. Somerset Maugham

Points of View (1959) Ch. 1

Age , Memory

“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 17, p. 64

Men , Suffering , Parting , Happiness

“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 bitter and cruel.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 182

People , Idea , Failure , Success

“Money is like a sixth sense - and you can't make use of the other five without it.”

W. Somerset Maugham

NY Times Magazine (October 18, 1958)

Money , Sense

“Both these men are in love with Natasha, Count Rostov's younger daughter, and in her Tolstoy has created the most delightful girl in fiction. Nothing is so difficult as to portray a young girl who is at once charming and interesting. Generally the young girls of fiction are colorless (Amelia in Vanity Fair), priggish (Fanny in Mansfield Park), too clever by half (Constantia Durham in The Egoist), or little geese (Dora in David Copperfield), silly flirts or innocent beyound belief. It is understandable that they should be an awkward subject for the novelist to deal with, for at that tender age the personality is undeveloped. Similarly a painter can only make a face interesting when the vicissitudes of life, thought, love and suffering have given it character. In the portrait of a girl the best he can do is to represent the charm and beauty of youth. But Natasha is entirely natural. She is sweet, sensitive, and sympathetic, willful, childish, womanly already, idealistic, quick-tempered, warm-hearted, headstrong, capricious and in everything enchanting. Tolstoy created many women and they are wonderfully true to life, but never another who wins the affection of the reader as does Natasha.”

W. Somerset Maugham

Leo Tolstoy and War and Peace
Great Novelists and Their Novels

Love , Life , Women , Men

“She was making money. But she could not get over the idea that to earn her living was somewhat undignified, and she was inclined to remind you that she was a lady by birth.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 17, p. 63

Money , Idea , Birth

“Men are always the same. Fear makes them cruel.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 55, p. 204

Men , Fear

“Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.”

W. Somerset Maugham

"1896", p. 17
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

Truth

“I am a little shy of any assumption of moral indignation. There is always in it an element of self-satisfaction which makes it awkward to anyone who has a sense of humour.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 32, p. 116

Sense

“There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood…Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 51

Money , Sense

“I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 52

“Now 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

Great Novelists and Their Novels (1948)

World , Anger