A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there's only one way to do that, he must also fool himself.
W. Somerset MaughamWe can none of us step into the same river twice, but the river flows on and the other river we step into is cool and refreshing, too
W. Somerset MaughamIn the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
W. Somerset MaughamCronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved conversation because it made him thirsty.
W. Somerset MaughamInsensibly 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.
W. Somerset Maugham