Collected Short Stories Quotes

“Time, because it is so fleeting, time, because it is beyond recall, is the most precious of human goods and to squander it is is the most delicate form of dissipation in which man can indulge. Cleopatra dissolved in wine a priceless pearl, but she gave it to Anthony to drink; when you waste the brief golden hours you take the beaker in which the gem is melted and dash its contents to the ground.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 2

“In the week I promised myself I should naturally read, for to the habitual reader reading is a drug of which he is the slave; deprive him of printed matter and he grows nervous, moody, and restless; then, like the alcoholic bereft of brandy who will drink shellac or methylated spirit, he will make do with the advertisements of a paper five years old; he will make do with a telephone directory.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 2

“A virtue that only causes havoc and unhappiness is worth nothing. You can call it virtue if you like. I call it cowardice.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 2