I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death's own hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to live any longer.
W. Somerset MaughamDeath is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
W. Somerset MaughamYou're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me now.
W. Somerset MaughamIt is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains and likened the pains of production to the pains of childbirth.
W. Somerset MaughamSome people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent or praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe.
W. Somerset Maugham