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. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can’t come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them. You can only know them if you are them.

“You know, at one time I made quite a little reputation for myself as a humorist by the simple process of telling the truth. It came as such a surprise to most people that they thought I was being funny.” “I don’t see the connection.” “Well, Larry is, I think, the only person I’ve ever met who’s completely disinterested. It makes his actions seem peculiar. We’re not used to persons who do things simply for the love of God whom they don’t believe in.”

Though not amusing, he was so good-humored and so easily pleased that it was impossible not to like him. He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.