“She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Source: A Writer's Notebook (1946), p. 189

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way t…" by W. Somerset Maugham?

W. Somerset Maugham 158

British playwright, novelist, short story writer 1874–1965

Related quotes

“The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Quoted in The Fine Art of Political Wit by Leon Harris (1964); this statement is derived from one by humorist Don Marquis

“On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto II, line 7.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“…her breasts swam towards me like two pink-nosed fish and she let me hold them.”

Philip Roth book Goodbye, Columbus

Source: Goodbye, Columbus (1959), Chapter 2

“She was tall and pleasantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Her body was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow. She wore two shades of blue that had been selected because of her eyes. The hair curling from under her blue hat was darkly red, her full lips more brightly red. White teeth glistened in the crescent her timid smile made.”

Dashiell Hammett book The Maltese Falcon

Description of Brigid O'Shaughnessy
The Maltese Falcon (1930)

“Armida smiles to hear, but keeps her gaze
fixed on herself, love's labours to behold.
Her locks she braided and their wanton ways
in lovely order marshalled and controlled.
She wound the curls of her fine strands with sprays
of flowers, like enamel worked on gold,
and made the stranger rose join with her pale
breast's native lily, and composed her veil.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Ride Armida a quel dir: ma non che cesse
Dal vagheggiarsi, o da' suoi bei lavori.
Poichè intrecciò le chiome, e che ripresse
Con ordin vago i lor lascivi errori,
Torse in anella i crin minuti, e in esse,
Quasi smalto su l'or, consparse i fiori:
E nel bel sen le peregrine rose
Giunse ai nativi giglj, e 'l vel compose.
Canto XVI, stanza 23 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)