W. Somerset Maugham
British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, The Trembling of a Leaf, 1921
Posted on March 2, 2000 at 11:07 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
It is a difficulty in writing English that the sound of the living voice dominates the look of the printed word.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, The Summing Up, 1936
Posted on March 22, 2000 at 12:18 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, The Moon and Sixpence, 1919
Posted on July 6, 1998 at 8:15 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, A Writer's Notebook, 1933
Posted on March 31, 1999 at 9:13 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, A Writer's Notebook, 1949
Posted on March 5, 1999 at 3:07 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase this is grammatical.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer
Posted on January 17, 2003 at 3:45 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably . . . have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer
Posted on August 29, 2003 at 7:11 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Most people have a furious itch to talk about themselves and are restrained only be the disinclination of others to listen.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, The Summing Up
Posted on January 6, 1999 at 11:23 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him. . . . The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart's blood.
—W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, A Writer's Notebook
Posted on July 3, 2001 at 11:55 AM
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