As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.

— W. Somerset Maugham

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

— W. Somerset Maugham

A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves what everyone else believes.

— W. Somerset Maugham

A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her. . . But she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.

— W. Somerset Maugham

A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Beauty is an ecstasy it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Beauty is an ecstasy it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Benevolence is often very peremptory.

— W. Somerset Maugham