A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.
W. Somerset MaughamVaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter's mind. It was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw.
W. Somerset MaughamShe says it's really not very flattering to her that the women who fall in love with her husband are so uncommonly second-rate.
W. Somerset MaughamPeople are always a little disconcerted when you don't recognize them, they are so important to themselves, it is a shock to discover of what small importance they are to others. [The human element]
W. Somerset Maugham