A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence.
W. Somerset MaughamArt is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
W. Somerset MaughamI think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realize how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart.
W. Somerset Maugham