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"Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment."
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"Outside, across the putrid moat and under the dark mute trees, I would often lie and dream for hours about what I read in the books; and would longingly picture myself amidst gay crowds in the sunny world beyond the endless forests."

"I've had enough of this. if you'll excuse me, i'm going to find a tavern where i can pay an underdressed woman to sit it my lap and look very pleased with me while i drink heavily."

"Where else can we find happiness for a day other than from something that can offer momentary relief, something like the booze?"

"I recognized it instantly. It was a made-up story, a fantasy, the tale of four kids who went through a magic wardrobe and found themselves in a strange new world. I'd read it more times than I could remember, and although I sneered at the thought of a magical land with friendly, talking animals, there were times when I wished, in my most secret moments, that I could find a hidden door that would take us allout of this place."

"To write poetry and to commit suicide, apparently so contradictory, had really been the same, attempts at escape."
Explore more quotes by W. Somerset Maugham


"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."


"If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself."


"What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories."


"And the poor lady, so small in her black satin, shrivelled up and sallow, with her funny corkscrew curls, took the little boy on her lap and put her arms around him and wept as though her heart would break. But her tears were partly tears of happiness, for she felt that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved him now with a new love because he had made her suffer."


"We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby."
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