The Razor's Edge

by W. Somerset Maugham

For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they were born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives’ tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in.

After all, if you must live in America I can’t see any object in living anywhere but in New York.”

“Well, I thought I’d start by going to Paris. I know no one there. There’d be no one to interfere with me. I went to Paris several times on leave. I don’t know why, but I’ve got it into my head that there everything that’s muddled in my mind would grow clear. It’s a funny picture, it gives you the feeling that there you can think out your thoughts to the end without let or hindrance. I think there I may be able to see my way before me.”

“I want to make up my mind whether God is or God is not. I want to find out why evil exists. I want to know whether I have an immortal soul or whether when I die it’s the end.”