Collected Short Stories Quotes

“I do not believe that I am a vindictive man, but when the immortal gods take a hand in the matter it is pardonable to observe the results with complacency.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

“I do not like these painted faces that look all alike; and I think women are foolish to dull their expression and obscure their personality with powder, rouge, and lipstick.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

“Well, Henry, if I were you I wouldn’t worry”, said the lawyer. “My belief is that your boy’s born lucky, and in the long run that’s better than to be born clever or rich.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

“…I do not mind odious young men; it is when they are charming that I button up the pockets of my sympathy.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

“We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbors. Each one of us is a prisoner in a solitary tower and he communicates with the other prisoners, who form mankind, by conventional signs that have not quite the same meaning for them as for himself.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

“From the standpoint of what eternity is it better to have read a thousand books than to have ploughed a million furrows?”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

“Heaven knows, I'm the easiest woman in the world to get on with, but I will not be bullied by any man. After all, I have my self-respect to think of.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

“It was difficult for her to preserve that haughty, sullen, and coldly indifferent demeanour that appears to be essential to the mannequin as she sails in with deliberate steps, turns round slowly and, with an air of contempt for the universe equalled only by the camel’s, sails out.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“...her very kindness was cruel because it was founded not on love but on reason...”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1

“IT IS NOT often that anyone entering a great city for the first time has the luck to witness such an incident as engaged Shelley’s attention when he drove into Naples. A youth ran out of a shop pursued by a man armed with a knife. The man overtook him and with one blow in the neck laid him dead on the road. Shelley had a tender heart. He didn’t look upon it as a bit of local colour; he was seized with horror and indignation. But when he expressed his emotions to a Calabrian priest who was travelling with him, a fellow of gigantic strength and stature, the priest laughed heartily and attempted to quiz him. Shelley says he never felt such an inclination to beat anyone.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“Each one of us is a prisoner in a solitary tower and he communicates with the other prisoners, who form mankind, by conventional signs that have not quite the same meaning for them as for himself.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“Mrs Sutcliffe had the odd first name of Arrow.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“Her long legs enabled her to wear pyjamas with distinction, and her slim waist, her little breasts, made the simplest bathing dress a ravishment. She could wear anything”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“came up to us bearing a large basket full of huge peaches. They had the blush of an innocent girl; they had the rich tone of an Italian landscape.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“The wise traveller travels only in imagination.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“What do you value in life then?’ ‘I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me. Beauty, truth, and goodness.’ ‘Don’t you think you can have those in Chicago?’ ‘Some men can, perhaps, but not I.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“The full moon, sailing across an unclouded sky, made a pathway on the broad sea that led to the boundless realms of Forever.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“He left the place with a singular feeling that the man he had just interviewed had much to tell him, but no intention of telling it.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“The later letters were as tender and as delightful as the first, but the tone was different. She was vaguely suspicious of their humour, she had the instinctive mistrust of her sex for that unaccountable quality, and she discerned in them now a flippancy which perplexed her. She was not quite certain that the Edward who wrote to her now was the same Edward that she had known.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“She didn’t cry. But she’s trembling like a leaf.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“persistence that was maddening. It seemed to have a fury of its own. And sometimes you felt that you must scream if it did not stop, and then suddenly you felt powerless, as though your bones had suddenly become soft; and you were miserable and hopeless.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“And Dr Macphail watched the rain. It was beginning to get on his nerves. It was not like our soft English rain that drops gently on the earth; it was unmerciful and somehow terrible; you felt in it the malignancy of the primitive powers of nature. It did not pour, it flowed. It was like a deluge from heaven, and it rattled on the roof of corrugated iron with a steady”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“I have learnt by experience that when a book makes a sensation it is just as well to wait a year before you read it. It”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4

“annihilated them. ‘I have often wondered why men”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 of 4