The Circle Quotes

“I don't know that in life it matters so much what you do as what you are. No one can learn by the experience of another because no circumstances are quite the same. If we made rather a hash of things perhaps it was because we were rather trivial people.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Circle: A Comedy in Three Acts

“C.-C.: Tell me frankly, Kitty, don't you think people make a lot of unnecessary fuss about love?
LADY KITTY: It's the most wonderful thing in the world.
C.-C.: You're incorrigible. Do you really think it was worth sacrificing so much for?
LADY KITTY: My dear Clive, I don't mind telling you that if I had my time over again I should be unfaithful to you, but I should not leave you.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Circle: A Comedy in Three Acts

“C.-C.: My dear Arnold, we all hope that you have before you a distinguished political career. You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
ARNOLD: But supposing it doesn't come off? Women are incalculable.
C.-C.: Nonsense! Men are romantic. A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self-indulgence.
ARNOLD: I never know whether you're a humorist or a cynic, father.
C.-C.: I'm neither, my dear boy; I'm merely a very truthful man. But people are so unused to the truth that they're apt to mistake it for a joke or a sneer.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Circle: A Comedy in Three Acts

“I'm only twenty-five. If I've made a mistake I have time to correct it.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Circle: A Comedy in Three Acts

“PORTEOUS: Do you mean to say you were going to steal my car.
TEDDIE: Not exactly. I was only going to bolshevise it, so to speak.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Circle: A Comedy in Three Acts