Once munching has begun, Schopenhauer held, the human will cannot resist further munching, and the result is a universe with crumbs over everything.

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

What people who don't write don't understand is that they think you make up the line consciously — but you don't. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it's the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don't think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I've said. And I laugh at it, because I'm hearing it for the first time myself.

During the course of the year a number of ideas just come up automatically. I could be walking down the street. Or shaving. An idea will hit me and I'll write it down. Then, when I'm ready to write, I check my little matchbooks and napkins and find that it is good or it's pretty terrible. There are other times when I don't have any ideas and I'll go into a room and close the door and I sit and sweat it out for a day or a month and eventually I come up with [something].

[...] I've come to the conclusion that the artist can not justify life or come up with a cogent reason as to why life is meaningful, but the artist can provide you with a cold glass of water on a hot day.

Maugham then offers the greatest advice anyone could give to a young author: "At the end of an interrogation sentence, place a question mark. You'd be surprised how effective it can be."

Sex between a man and a woman can be absolutely wonderful; provided you get between the right man and the right woman.