Maugham Novel Quotes & Sayings

I used to think that one day I should write a really great novel, but I've long ceased even to hope for that. All I want people to say is that I do my best. I do work. I never let anything slipshod get past me. I think I can tell a good story and I can create characters that ring true. — W. Somerset Maugham

It's easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop. — John Le Carre

Public intellectuals come from a range of areas and use their expertise to comment more widely than just their field. They want to make a contribution to public space, and they stick their necks out to do it. — Susie Orbach

When I'm raising money, this fundraising, I'm thinking about the next fundraising. I'm thinking how I'm set up for it. — Reid Hoffman

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

The title for this story comes from the Dutch philosopher Spinoza, who gave Part IV of his work Ethics the title Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions. Spinoza makes the point that humans are held hostage by their emotions and that to free oneself from this captivity, one has to know one's aims in life and follow them. It is an apt title, as the novel is centred on the unconscious search of the main character, Philip Carey, for his path in life and the tribulations he faces in trying to find peace. — William Somerset Maugham

I HAVE NEVER BEGUN a novel with more misgiving. If I call it a novel it is only because I don't know what else to call it. — W. Somerset Maugham

Anonymity is a universal convention of the blogosphere, and the wicked expedience is that you can speak without consequences. — Lee Siegel

Out of the darkness comes light like a flash
You think you can, you think you can
Sometimes that is the problem
Dream little darling dream — Dave Matthews

People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one or two of his books they feel on peculiarly intimate terms with him; or it may be that they dramatize themselves and, seeing themselves as it were as characters in a novel, are ready to be as open with him as they imagine the characters of his invention are. — W. Somerset Maugham

Broken locks and bruised knees and borrowed lipgloss and rain on the streets — Rebecca Godfrey

For ebbing resolution ne'er returns,
But falls still further from its former shore. — Alec Douglas-Home

Why carve? It's a better sculpture that way. I'll never improve the block. So I just started using uncarved blocks. — Carl Andre

Don't become me. Don't let her down like I did. You only deserve what you make yourself worthy of. Do what I couldn't. Be a man. — Abbi Glines

There are three secrets to writing a novel. Unfortunately nobody knows what they are. — W. Somerset Maugham

I am, incidentally, the only writer to have received the Somerset Maugham award twice - the first time for my first novel, the second time for my second first novel. — Martin Amis

Goethe said, "The author whom a lexicon can keep up with is worth nothing"; Somerset Maugham says that the finest compliment he ever received was a letter in which one of his readers said: "I read your novel without having to look up a single word in the dictionary." These writers, plainly, lived in different worlds. — Randall Jarrell

A novel cannot be made of facts alone; in themselves they are dead things. — W. Somerset Maugham

I'm fighting hard to make the world a better place, and you can, too. Get involved with your community, be a leader, set an example, be passionate, be your best. — Gabrielle Giffords

Checklists turn out ... to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains. — Atul Gawande

Brave? Or stupid?"
Roger shrugged. "I've never been quite sure where brave stopped and stupid began, myself. — Gerald Morris

Big-government economics breeds crony capitalism. It's corrupt, anything but neutral, and a barrier to broad participation in prosperity. — Paul Ryan

He will think Lochan wasn't loved, but he was, more deeply than most people are in a lifetime. — Tabitha Suzuma

A sensible person does not read a novel as a task. He reads it as a diversion. He is prepared to interest himself in the characters and is concerned to see how they act in given circumstances, and what happens to them; he sympathizes with their troubles and is gladdened by their joys; he puts himself in their place and, to an extent, lives their lives. Their view of life, their attitude to the great subjects of human speculation, whether stated in words or shown in action, call forth in him a reaction of surprise, of pleasure or of indignation. But he knows instinctively where his interest lies and he follows it as surely as a hound follows the scent of a fox. Sometimes, through the author's failure, he loses the scent. Then he flounders about till he finds it again. He skips. — W. Somerset Maugham

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

The novel may stimulate you to think. It may satisfy your aesthetic sense. It may arouse your moral emotions. But if it does not entertain you it is a bad novel. — W. Somerset Maugham

I wish I knew exactly who I was. I was talking to a friend earlier about the advice people give each other, advice like "just be yourself," and how this is particularly awful because it presumes we know who we are. As if people are static and unchanging. — Mary J. Miller