top of page

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Rules quotes

"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."

"Some people - and a high percentage of submissives - wanted clear-cut rules. Preferred their duties laid out, like schedules and lists."

"That's maybe the most important thing each generation does, is to break a lot of rules and make up their own way of doing things."

"Knowing the rules and remembering the rules are two completely different things."
Explore more quotes by W. Somerset Maugham


"They will notdisappoint you, and you will look upon them morecharitably. Men seek but one thing in life-their pleasure."


"You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.'Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip."


"Everything passed, and what trace of its passage remained? It seemed to Kitty that they were all, the human race, like the drops of water in that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy."


"On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it, so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment."


"It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you for it was the illusion they loved."


"It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories."


"Philip looked at his own work. How could you tell whether there was anything in it or whether you were wasting your time? It was clear that the will to achieve could not help you and confidence in yourself meantnothing."


"A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her . . . but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account."
bottom of page