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I Want A Girl Because I Want To Bring Her Up So That She Shan't Make The Mistakes I've Made. When I Look Back Upon The Girl I Was I Hate Myself. But I Never Had A Chance. I'm Going To Bring Up My Daughter So That She's Free And Can Stand On Her Own Feet. I´m Not Going To Bring A Child Into The World, And Love Her, And Bring Her Up, Just So That Some Man May Want To Sleep With Her So Much That He's Willing To Provide Her With Board And Lodging For The Rest Of Her Life.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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I Want A Girl

W. Somerset Maugham

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I Want A Girl Because I Want To Bring Her Up So That She Shan't Make The Mistakes I've Made. When I Look Back Upon The Girl I Was I Hate Myself. But I Never Had A Chance. I'm Going To Bring Up My Daughter So That She's Free And Can Stand On Her Own Feet. I´m Not Going To Bring A Child Into The World, And Love Her, And Bring Her Up, Just So That Some Man May Want To Sleep With Her So Much That He's Willing To Provide Her With Board And Lodging For The Rest Of Her Life.

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In Civilized Communities Men's Idiosyncrasies Are Mitigated By The Necessity Of Conforming To Certain Rules Of Behavior. Culture Is A Mask That Hides Their Faces.

There Is Nothing So Degrading As The Constant Anxiety About One's Means Of Livelihood.

There In The Mist, Enormous, Majestic, Silent And Terrible, Stood The Great Wall Of China. Solitarily, With The Indifference Of Nature Herself, It Crept Up The Mountain Side And Slipped Down To The Depth Of The Valley.

Men Seek But One Thing In Life - Their Pleasure.

People Do Tell A Writer Things That They Don't Tell Others. I Don't Know Why, Unless It Is That Having Read One Or Two Of His Books They Feel On Peculiarly Intimate Terms With Him; Or It May Be That They Dramatize Themselves And, Seeing Themselves As It Were As Characters In A Novel, Are Ready To Be As Open With Him As They Imagine The Characters Of His Invention Are.

One Cannot Find Peace In Work Or In Pleasure, In The World Or In A Convent, But Only In One's Soul.

I'm Only Twenty-five. If I've Made A Mistake I Have Time To Correct It.

It Is An Illusion That Youth Is Happy, An Illusion Of Those Who Have Lost It.

She Alone Had Been Blind To His Merit. Why? Because He Loved Her And She Did Not Love Him. What Was It In The Human Heart That Made You Despise A Man Because He Loved You?

Insensibly 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.

I've Always Been Interested In People, But I've Never Liked Them.

I Can Only Guess That It Made The World He Went Back To...strangely Without Meaning. Though He Lived In It, Though He Even Enjoyed It, It Remained Utterly Remote. I Think It Had Lost Sense For Him. In His Heart Was The Reflection Of A Lovely Dream That He Could Never Quite Recall.

Freedom! That Was The Thought That Sung In Her Heart So That Even Though The Future Was So Dim, It Was Iridescent Like The Mist Over The River Where The Morning Sun Fell Upon It. Freedom! Not Only Freedom From A Bond That Irked, And A Companionship Which Depressed Her; Freedom, Not Only From The Death Which Had Threatened, But Freedom From The Love That Had Degraded Her; Freedom From All Spiritual Ties, The Freedom Of A Disembodied Spirit, And With Freedom, Courage , And A Valiant Unconcern For Whatever Was To Come.

I Promised Myself That If Ever I Had Some Money That I Would Savor A Cigar Each Day After Lunch And Dinner. This Is The Only Resolution Of My Youth That I Have Kept, And The Only Realized Ambition Which Has Not Brought Disillusion.

Nothing In The World Is Permanent, And We’re Foolish When We Ask Anything To Last, But Surely We’re Still More Foolish Not To Take Delight In It While We Have It.

Enjoy It While It Lasts

It's Always Difficult To Make Conversation With A Drunk, And There's No Denying It, The Sober Are At A Disadvantage With Him.

My Own Belief Is That There Is Hardly Anyone Whose Sexual Life, If It Were Broadcast, Would Not Fill The World At Large With Surprise And Horror.

To Acquire The Habit Of Reading Is To Construct For Yourself A Refuge From Almost All The Miseries Of Life.

Considering How Foolishly People Act And How Pleasantly They Prattle, Perhaps It Would Be Better For The World If They Talked More And Did Less.

The Artist Produces For The Liberation Of His Soul.

The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

Every Production Of An Artist Should Be The Expression Of An Adventure Of His Soul.

Through The History Of The World There Have Always Been Exploiters And Exploited. There Always Will Be ... Because The Great Mass Of Men Are Made By Nature To Be Slaves, They Are Unfit To Control Themselves, And For Their Own Good Need Masters.

A Mother Only Does Her Children Harm If She Makes Them The Only Concern Of Her Life.

The Author Always Loads His Dice, But He Must Never Let The Reader See That He Has Done So, And By The Manipulation Of His Plot, He Can Engage The Reader's Attention So That He Does Not Perceive The Violence That Has Been Done To Him.

Money Is Like A Sixth Sense Without Which You Cannot Make A Complete Use Of The Other Five.

If You'd Ever Had A Grown-up Daughter You'd Know That By Comparison A Bucking Steer Is Easy To Manage. And As To Knowing What Goes On Inside Her - Well, It's Much Better To Pretend You're The Simple, Innocent Old Fool She Almost Certainly Takes You For.

By The Time A Man Notices That He Is No Longer Young, His Youth Has Long Since Left Him.

Women's Hearts Are Like Old China, None The Worse For A Break Or Two.

Some American Delusions: 1) That There Is No Class-consciousness In The Country. 2) That American Coffee Is Good. 3) That Americans Are Business-like. 4) That Americans Are Highly-sexed And That Redheads Are More Highly Sexed Than Others.

Genius Is Talent Provided With Ideals. Genius Starves While Talent Wears Purple And Fine Linen. The Man Of Genius Of Today Will Infifty Years' Time Be In Most Cases No More Than A Man Of Talent.

The Highest Activities Of Consciousness Have Their Origins In Physical Occurrences Of The Brain, Just As The Loveliest Melodies Are Not Too Sublime To Be Expressed By Notes.

When A Man's In Love, He At Once Makes A Pedestal Of The Ten Commandments And Stands On The Top Of Them With His Arms Akimbo. When A Woman's In Love She Doesn't Care Two Straws For Thou Shalt And Thou Shalt Not.

Are You Sure You Can Prevent Yourself From Falling In Love One Of These Days? Such Things Do Happen, You Know, Even To The Most Prudent Men.' Simon Gave Him A Strange, One Might Even Have Thought A Hostile, Look. I Should Tear It Out Of My Heart As I'd Wrench Out Of My Mouth A Rotten Tooth.

Falling In Love

People Ask For Criticism, But They Only Want Praise.

We Didn't Think Much In The Air Corps Of A Fellow Who Wangled A Cushy Job Out Of His C.o. By Buttering Him Up. It Was Hard For Me To Believe That God Thought Much Of A Man Who Tried To Wangle Salvation By Fulsome Flattery. I Should Have Thought The Worship Most Pleasing To Him Was To Do Your Best According To Your Lights.

It Is Not Wealth One Asks For, But Just Enough To Preserve One's Dignity, To Work Unhampered, To Be Generous, Frank And Independent.

Dignity Of Work

Self-control Might Be As Passionate And As Active As The Surrender To Passion.

Sometimes The Road Was Only A Lane, With Thick Hawthorne Hedges, And The Green Elms Overhung It On Either Side So That When You Looked Up There Was Only A Strip Of Blue Sky Between. And As You Rode Along In The Warm, Keen Air You Had A Sensation That The World Was Standing Still And Life Would Last Forever. Although You Were Pedaling With Such Energy You Had A Delicious Feeling Of Laziness.

Art, Unless It Leads To Right Action, Is No More Than The Opium Of An Intelligentsia.

All The Words I Use In My Stories Can Be Found In The Dictionary-it's Just A Matter Of Arranging Them Into The Right Sentences.

A Good Rule For Writers: Do Not Explain Overmuch.

The Nature Of Men And Women - Their Essential Nature - Is So Vile And Despicable That If You Were To Portray A Person As He Really Is, No One Would Believe You.

On The Earth, Satellite Of A Star Speeding Through Space, Living Things Had Arisen Under The Influence Of Conditions Which Were Part Of The Planet's History; And As There Had Been A Beginning Of Life Upon It, So, Under The Influence Of Other Conditions, There Would Be An End: Man, No More Significant Than Other Forms Of Life, Had Come Not As The Climax Of Creation But As A Physical Reaction To The Environment.

Simplicity And Naturalness Are The Truest Marks Of Distinction.

With The Superciliousness Of Extreme Youth, I Put Thirty-five As The Utmost Limit At Which A Man Might Fall In Love Without Making A Fool Of Himself.

Falling In Love

Culture Is Not Just An Ornament; It Is The Expression Of A Nation's Character, And At The Same Time It Is A Powerful Instrument To Mould Character. The End Of Culture Is Right Living.

It Is Cruel To Discover One's Mediocrity Only When It Is Too Late. It Does Not Improve The Temper.

When You Have Loved As She Has Loved, You Grow Old Beautifully.

The Artist Can Within Limits Make What He Likes Of His Life... It Is Only The Artist, And Maybe The Criminal, Who Can Make His Own.

Men Have Ascribed To God Imperfections That They Would Deplore In Themselves.

We Are Not The Same Persons This Year As Last; Nor Are Those We Love. It Is A Happy Chance If We, Changing, Continue To Love A Changed Person.

Loving-kindness Is The Better Part Of Goodness. It Lends Grace To The Sterner Qualities Of Which This Consists.

There Are Men Who Are Possessed By An Urge So Strong To Do Some Particular Thing That They Can't Help Themselves, They've Got To Do It. They're Prepared To Sacrifice Everything To Satisfy Their Yearning.

It's No Good Trying To Keep Up Old Friendships. It's Painful For Both Sides. The Fact Is, One Grows Out Of People, And The Only Thing Is To Face It.

You Know What The Critics Are. If You Tell The Truth They Only Say You're Cynical And It Does An Author No Good To Get A Reputation For Cynicism.

The Humour Of Dostoievsky Is The Humour Of A Barloafer Who Ties A Kettle To A Dog's Tail.

Impropriety Is The Soul Of Wit.

The Writer Is More Concerned To Know Than To Judge.

Sherry, The Civilized Drink.

Follow Your Inclinations With Due Regard To The Policeman Round The Corner.

And I Have The Sunset, And The Tuscan Wine, And The White Teeth Of The Women In Rome. I Am A Traveler In Romance.

Any Society That Values Wealth Above Freedom Will Lose Its Freedom, And Will Ultimately Lose Its Wealth As Well

There's Nothing The World Loves More Than A Ready-made Description Which They Can Hang On To A Man, And So Save Themselves All Trouble In Future.

There Are Directors Who Desire To Be Artistic. It Is Pathetic To Compare The Seriousness Of Their Aim With The Absurdity Of Their Attainment.

For The Complete Life, The Perfect Pattern Includes Old Age As Well As Youth And Maturity.

It Has Been Said That Metaphysics Is The Finding Of Bad Reasons For What We Believe Upon Instinct.

What Do We Any Of Us Have But Our Illusions? And What Do We Ask Of Others But That We Be Allowed To Keep Them?

Nothing More Predisposes Someone In Our Favour Than To Let Him Rob You A Little.

I Would Sooner Read A Time-table Or A Catalogue Than Nothing At All. They Are Much More Entertaining Than Half The Novels That Are Written.

You Learn More Quickly Under The Guidance Of Experienced Teachers. You Waste A Lot Of Time Going Down Blind Alleys If You Have No One To Lead You.

Writing Is A Wholetime Job: No Professional Writer Can Afford Only To Write When He Feels Like It.

Death Is A Very Dull, Dreary Affair, And My Advice To You Is To Have Nothing Whatsoever To Do With It.

I Do Not Think You Want Too Much Sincerity In Society. It Would Be Like An Iron Girder In A House Of Cards.

Life Wouldn’t Be Worth Living If I Worried Over The Future As Well As The Present. When Things Are At Their Worst I Find Something Always Happens.

Most People Are Such Fools That It Is Really No Great Compliment To Say That Someone Is Above The Average.

From The Earliest Time The Old Have Rubbed It Into The Young That They Are Wiser, And Before The Young Had Discovered What Nonsense This Was They Were Old Too, And It Profited Them To Carry On The Imposture.

But Philip Was Impatient With Himself; He Called To Mind His Idea Of The Pattern Of Life: The Unhappiness He Had Suffered Was No More Than Part Of A Decoration Which Was Elaborate And Beautiful; He Told Himself Strenuously That He Must Accept With Gaiety Everything, Dreariness And Excitement, Pleasure And Pain, Because It Added To The Richness Of The Design.

Dying Is The Most Hellishly Boresome Experience In The World! Particularly When It Entails Dying Of 'natural Causes'.

You Know, Of Course, That The Tasmanians, Who Never Committed Adultery, Are Now Extinct.

Make Him Laugh And He Will Think You A Trivial Fellow, But Bore Him In The Right Way And Your Reputation Is Assured.

I Can Imagine No More Comfortable Frame Of Mind For The Conduct Of Life Than A Humorous Resignation.

Cronshaw 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.

It Wasn't Until Late In Life That I Discovered How Easy It Is To Say, 'i Don't Know.'

The Writer Of Prose Can Only Step Aside When The Poet Passes...

To Write Simply Is As Difficult As To Be Good.

The Trouble With Young Writers Is That They Are All In Their Sixties.

I'll Give You My Opinion Of The Human Race In A Nutshell... Their Heart's In The Right Place, But Their Head Is A Thoroughly Inefficient Organ.

The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry.

Common-sense Appears To Be Only Another Name For The Thoughtlessness Of The Unthinking. It Is Made Of The Prejudices Of Childhood, The Idiosyncrasies Of Individual Character And The Opinion Of The Newspapers.

The Arguments For Immortality, Weak When You Take Them One By One, Are No More Cogent When You Take Them Together... For My Part, I Cannot See How Consciousness Can Persist When Its Physical Basis Has Been Destroyed, And I Am Too Sure Of The Interconnection Of My Body And My Mind To Think That Any Survival Of My My Consciousness Apart From My Body Would Be In Any Sense A Survival Of Myself.

I Am Afraid Of People With Too Much Charm. They Devour You. In The End You Are Made A Sacrifice To The Exercise Of Their Fascinating Gift And Their Insincerity.

I Never Spend More Than One Hour In A Gallery. That Is As Long As One's Power Of Appreciation Persists.

Writing Is The Supreme Solace.

The World Is Hard And Cruel. We Are Here None Knows Why, And We Go None Knows Whither. We Must Be Very Humble. We Must See The Beauty Of Quietness. We Must Go Through Life So Inconspicuously That Fate Does Not Notice Us. And Let Us Seek The Love Of Simple, Ignorant People. Their Ignorance Is Better Than All Our Knowledge. Let Us Be Silent, Content In Our Little Corner, Meek And Gentle Like Them. That Is The Wisdom Of Life.

No Action Is In Itself Good Or Bad, But Only Such According To Convention.

The Trouble Is That Thinking Looks Like Loafing. Who Wants To Pay People For Daydreaming?

It Is Not Difficult To Be Unconventional In The Eyes Of The World When Your Unconventionality Is But The Convention Of Your Set.

To Bear Failure With Courage Is The Best Proof Of Character That Anyone Can Give.

She Had No Mercy. He Looked At Her Neck And Thought How He Would Like To Jab It With The Knife He Had For His Muffin. He Knew Enough Anatomy To Make Pretty Certain Of Getting The Carotid Artery. And At The Same Time He Wanted To Cover Her Pale, Thin Face With Kisses.

If You Can Tell Stories, Create Characters, Devise Incidents, And Have Sincerity And Passion, It Doesn't Matter A Damn How You Write.

The Complete Life, The Perfect Pattern, Includes Old Age As Well As Youth And Maturity. The Beauty Of The Morning And The Radiance Of Noon Are Good, But It Would Be A Very Silly Person Who Drew The Curtains And Turned On The Light In Order To Shut Out The Tranquillity Of The Evening. Old Age Has Its Pleasures, Which, Though Different, Are Not Less Than The Pleasures Of Youth.

It Is One Of The Defects Of My Character That I Cannot Altogether Dislike Anyone Who Makes Me Laugh.

What Has Influenced My Life More Than Any Other Single Thing Has Been My Stammer. Had I Not Stammered I Would Probably... Have Gone To Cambridge As My Brothers Did, Perhaps Have Become A Don And Every Now And Then Published A Dreary Book About French Literature.

The Common Idea That Success Spoils People By Making Them Vain, Egotistic And Self-complacent Is Erroneous; On The Contrary It Makes Them, For The Most Part, Humble, Tolerant And Kind.

Congratulations

Because A Man Can Write Great Works He Is None The Less A Man.

The Audience Is A Very Curious Animal. It Is Shrewd Rather Than Intelligent. Its Mental Capacity Is Less Than That Of Its Most Intellectual Members.

When I Read A Book I Seem To Read It With My Eyes Only, But Now And Then I Come Across A Passage, Perhaps Only A Phrase, Which Has A Meaning For Me, And It Becomes Part Of Me.

You Must Not Pursue A Success, But Fly From It.

If Nobody Spoke Unless He Had Something To Say, The Human Race Would Very Soon Lose The Use Of Speech.

The Ideal Has Many Names, And Beauty Is But One Of Them.

The Officers Saluted As She Passed And Gravely Bowed. They Walked Back Across The Courtyard And Got Into Their Chairs. She Saw Waddington Light A Cigarette. A Little Smoke Lost In The Air, That Was The Life Of A Man.

There Is No Object To Life. To Nature Nothing Matters But The Continuation Of The Species.

It 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.

Excess On Occasion Is Exhilarating. It Prevents Moderation From Acquiring The Deadening Effect Of A Habit.

When Some Incident Has Shattered The Career You’ve Mapped Out For Yourself, A Folly, A Crime Or A Misfortune, You Mustn’t Think You’re Down And Out. It May Be A Stroke Of Luck, And When You Look Back Years Later You May Say To Yourself That You Wouldn’t For Anything In The World Exchange The New Life Disaster Has Forced Upon You For The Dull, Humdrum Existence You Would Have Led If Circumstances Hadn’t Intervened.

But There Are People Who Take Salt With Their Coffee. They Say It Gives A Tang, A Savour, Which Is Peculiar And Fascinating. In The Same Way There Are Certain Places, Surrounded By A Halo Of Romance, To Which The Inevitable Disillusionment You Experience On Seeing Them Gives A Singular Spice. You Had Expected Something Wholly Beautiful And You Get An Impression Which Is Infinitely More Complicated Than Any That Beauty Can Give You. It Is The Weakness In The Character Of A Great Man Which May Make Him Less Admirable But Certainly More Interesting. Nothing Had Prepared Me For Honolulu.

Often The Best Way To Overcome Desire Is To Satisfy It.

Tolerance Is Another Word For Indifference.

There Are Men Whose Sense Of Humour Is So Ill Developed That They Still Bear A Grudge Against Copernicus Because He Dethroned Them From The Central Position In The Universe. They Feel It A Personal Affront That They Can No Longer Consider Themselves The Pivot Upon Which Turns The Whole Of Created Things.

It Does The Heart Good To Look At You.

Our Wise Old Church...has Discovered That If You Will Act As If You Believed Belief Will Be Given To You; If You Pray With Doubt, But Pray With Sincerity, Your Doubt Will Be Dispelled; If You Will Surrender Yourself To The Beauty Of That Liturgy The Power Of Which Over The Human Spirit Has Been Proved By The Experience Of The Ages, Peace Will Descend Upon You.

I Know That I Shall Die Struggling For Breath, And I Know That I Shall Be Horribly Afraid. I Know That I Shall Not Be Able To Keep Myself From Regretting Bitterly The Life That Has Brought Me To Such A Pass; But I Disown That Regret. I Now, Weak, Old, Diseased, Poor, Dying, Hold Still My Soul In My Hands, And I Regret Nothing.

I Forget Who It Was That Recommended Men For Their Soul's Good To Do Each Day Two Things They Disliked: It Was A Wise Man, And It Is A Precept That I Have Followed Scrupulously; For Every Day I Have Got Up And I Have Gone To Bed.

The Last Words He Said To Me When I Bade Him Good-night Were: Tell Amy It's No Good Coming After Me. Anyhow, I Shall Change My Hotel, So She Wouldn't Be Able To Find Me.' My Own Impression Is That She's Well Rid Of You,' I Said. My Dear Fellow, I Only Hope You'll Be Able To Make Her See It. But Women Are Very Unintelligent.

There Was An Immeasurable Distance Between The Quick And The Dead: They Did Not Seem To Belong To The Same Species; And It Was Strange To Think That But A Little While Before They Had Spoken And Moved And Eaten And Laughed.

There Are Times When I Look Over The Various Parts Of My Character With Perplexity. I Recognize That I Am Made Up Of Several Persons And That The Person That At The Moment Has The Upper Hand Will Inevitably Give Place To Another. But Which Is The Real One? All Of Them Or None?

Few Misfortunes Can Befall A Boy Which Bring Worse Consequence Than To Have A Really Affectionate Mother.

Thank God, I Can Look At A Sunset Now Without Having To Think How To Describe It

Do You Absolutely Despise Me, Walter?" "no." He Hesitated And His Voice Was Strange. "i Despise Myself.

No Married Man's Ever Made Up His Mind Until He's Heard What His Wife Has Got To Say About It.

For If The Proper Study Of Mankind Is Man, It Is Evidently More Sensible To Occupy Yourself With The Coherent, Substantial And Significant Creatures Of Fiction Than With The Irrational And Shadowy Figures Of Real Life.

Occupy Yourself

You Know, There Are Two Good Things In Life, Freedom Of Thought And Freedom Of Action. In France You Get Freedom Of Action: You Can Do What You Like And Nobody Bothers, But You Must Think Like Everybody Else. In Germany You Must Do What Everybody Else Does, But You May Think As You Choose. They're Both Very Good Things. I Personally Prefer Freedom Of Thought. But In England You Get Neither: You're Ground Down By Convention. You Can't Think As You Like And You Can't Act As You Like. That's Because It's A Democratic Nation. I Expect America's Worse.

I Never Met An Author Who Admitted That People Did Not Buy His Book Because It Was Dull.

Throw Yourself Into The Hurly-burly Of Life. It Doesn't Matter How Many Mistakes You Make, What Unhappiness You Have To Undergo. It Is All Your Material ... Don't Wait For Experience To Come To You; Go Out After Experience. Experience Is Your Material.

Marriage Is A Very Good Thing, But I Think It's A Mistake To Make A Habit Out Of It.

[money] Is The String With Which A Sardonic Destiny Directs The Motions Of Its Puppets.

The Dead Look So Terribly Dead When They're Dead.

The Audience Is Not The Least Important Actor In The Play And If It Will Not Do Its Allotted Share The Play Falls To Pieces.

Man Has Always Sacrificed Truth To His Vanity, Comfort And Advantage. He Lives Not By Truth But By Make-believe.

You Will Find As You Grow Older That The First Thing Needful To Make The World A Tolerable Place To Live In Is To Recognize The Inevitable Selfishness Of Humanity. You Demand Unselfishness From Others, Which Is A Preposterous Claim That They Should Sacrifice Their Desires To Yours. Why Should They? When You Are Reconciled To The Fact That Each Is For Himself In The World You Will Ask Less From Your Fellows. They Will Not Disappoint You, And You Will Look Upon Them More Charitably. Men Seek But One Thing In Life -- Their Pleasure.

Life Is Really Very Fantastic, And One Has To Have A Peculiar Sense Of Humour To See The Fun Of It. [virtue]

The Americans, Who Are The Most Efficient People On The Earth, Have Carried [phrase-making] To Such A Height Of Perfection And Have Invented So Wide A Range Of Pithy And Hackneyed Phrases That They Can Carry On An Amusing And Animated Conversation Without Giving A Moment’s Reflection To What They Are Saying And So Leave Their Minds Free To Consider The More Important Matters Of Big Business And Fornication.

First, Cut Out All The Wisdom, Then Cut Out All The Adjectives.

The First Duty Of A Woman Is To Be Pretty, The Second Is To Be Well-groomed, And The Third Is Never To Contradict.

I Wonder How Anyone Can Have The Face To Condemn Others When He Reflects Upon His Own Thoughts.

For Men And Women Are Not Only Themselves; They Are Also The Region In Which They Are Born, The City Apartment Or Farm In Which They Learnt To Walk, The Games They Played As Children, The Old Wives Tales They Overheard, The Food They Ate, The Schools They Attended, The Sports They Followed, The Poets They Read, And The God They Believed In. It Is All These Things That Have Made Them What They Are, And These Are The Things That You Can't Come To Know By Hearsay.

I Was A Stray Acquaintance Whom He Had Never Seem Before And Would Never See Again, A Wandered For A Moment Through His Monotonous Life, And Some Starved Impulse Left Him To Lay Bare His Soul. I Have In This Way Learned More About Men In A Night Than I Could If I Had Known Them For 10 Years. If You Are Interested In Human Nature, It Is One Of The Greatest Pleasures Of Travel.

You Cannot Write Well Or Much (and I Venture The Opinion That You Cannot Write Well Unless You Write Much) Unless You Form A Habit.

I'm Afraid You've Thought Me A Bigger Fool Than I Am.

We Are Like People Living In A Country Whose Language They Know So Little That, With All Manner Of Beautiful And Profound Things To Say, They Are Condemned To The Banalities Of The Conversation Manual. Their Brain Is Seething With Ideas, And They Can Only Tell You That The Umbrella Of The Gardener's Aunt Is In The House.

As If A Woman Ever Loved A Man For His Virtue.

There Are Three Rules For Writing A Novel. Unfortunately, No One Knows What They Are.

Perhaps The Most Important Use Of Money - It Saves Time. Life Is So Short, And There's So Much To Do, One Can't Afford To Waste A Minute; And Just Think How Much You Waste, For Instance, In Walking From Place To Place Instead Of Going By Bus And In Going By Bus Instead Of By Taxi.

And He Loved Her Suddenly Because She Loved Him.

If A Man Hasn't What's Necessary To Make A Woman Love Him, It's His Fault, Not Hers.

You're Beginning To Dislike Me, Aren't You? Well, Dislike Me. It Doesn't Make Any Difference To Me Now.

Imagination Grows By Exercise.

He Did Not Care Upon What Terms He Satisfied His Passion. He Had Even A Mad, Melodramatic Idea To Drug Her.

The Fact That A Great Many People Believe Something Is No Guarantee Of Its Truth.

Only Mediocre People Are At The Best All The Time.

People 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]

It Is Not True That Suffering Ennobles The Character; Happiness Does That Sometimes, But Suffering For The Most Part, Makes Men Petty And Vindictive.

In Hollywood, The Women Are All Peaches. It Makes One Long For An Apple Occasionally.

Art Should Be Appreciated With Passion And Violence, Not With A Tepid, Depreciating Elegance That Fears The Censoriousness Of A Common Room.

It Is Clear That Men Accept An Immediate Pain Rather Than An Immediate Pleasure, But Only Because They Expect A Greater Pleasure In The Future. Often The Pleasure Is Illusory, But Their Error In Calculation Is No Refutation Of The Rule.

It Is Well To Remember That Grammar Is Common Speech Formulated.

We Know Our Friends By Their Defects Rather Than By Their Merits.

The Great Tragedy Of Life Is Not That Men Perish, But That They Cease To Love.

A Writer Need Not Devour A Whole Sheep In Order To Know What Mutton Tastes Like, But He Must At Least Eat A Chop. Unless He Gets His Facts Right, His Imagination Will Lead Him Into All Kinds Of Nonsense, And The Facts He Is Most Likely To Get Right Are The Facts Of His Own Experience.

Success. I Don't Believe It Has Any Effect On Me. For One Thing I Always Expected It.

The Author Always Loads His Dice, But He Must Never Let The Reader See That He Has Done So.

We Do Not Write As We Want, But As We Can.

Only A Mediocre Person Is Always At His Best.

A Man Marries To Have A Home, But Also Because He Doesn't Want To Be Bothered With Sex And All That Sort Of Thing.

Was It Necessary To Tell Me That You Wanted Nothing In The World But Me?' The Corners Of His Mouth Drooped Peevishly. Oh, My Dear, It's Rather Hard To Take Quite Literally The Things A Man Says When He's In Love With You.' Didn't You Mean Them?' At The Moment.

You Europeans Know Nothing About America. Because We Amass Large Fortunes You Think We Care For Nothing But Money. We Are Nothing For It; The Moment We Have It We Spend It, Sometimes Well, Sometimes Ill, But We Spend It. Money Is Nothing To Us; It's Merely The Symbol Of Success. We Are The Greatest Idealists In The World; I Happen To Think That We've Set Our Ideal On The Wrong Objects; I Happen To Think That The Greatest Ideal Man Can Set Before Himself Is Self-perfection.

To Bear Failure With Courage Is The Best Proof Of Character That Anyone Can Give... You Will Find That People Forget The Failures Of Others Very Quickly.... My Last Piece Of Advice Is Not To Let Anyone See Your Mortification, But Whatever You Fancy People Are Saying About You To Go On With Your Ordinary Life As Though Nothing Unpleasant Had Happened To You.

We Who Are Of Mature Age Seldom Suspect How Unmercifully And Yet With What Insight The Very Young Judge Us.

If A Nation Values Anything More Than Freedom, It Will Lose Its Freedom; And The Irony Of It Is That If It Is Comfort Or Money That It Values More, It Will Lose That Too.

Libertarian Party

A Novelist Must Preserve A Childlike Belief In The Importance Of Things Which Common Sense Considers Of No Great Consequence.

The Best Style Is The Style You Don't Notice.

Creative Writing

You Will Have To Learn Many Tedious Things,...which You Will Forget The Moment You Have Passed Your Final Examination, But In Anatomy It Is Better To Have Learned And Lost Than Never To Have Learned At All.

The Passing Moment Is All We Can Be Sure Of; It Is Only Common Sense To Extract Its Utmost Value From It.

Passing Moments

I Don't Understand Anything. Life Is So Strange. I Feel Like Some One Who's Lived All His Life By A Duck-pond And Suddenly Is Shown The Sea. It Makes Me A Little Breathless, And Yet It Fills Me With Elation. I Don't Want To Die, I Want To Live. I'm Beginning To Feel A New Courage. I Feel Like One Of Those Old Sailors Who Set Sail For Undiscovered Seas And I Think My Soul Hankers For The Unknown.

If Truth Is A Value It Is Because It Is True And Not Because It Is Brave To Speak It.

I Daresay One Profits More By The Mistakes One Makes Off One's Own Bat Than By Doing The Right Thing On Somebody's Else Advice.

Why Did You Look At The Sunset?' Philip Answered With His Mouth Full: Because I Was Happy.

The Ability To Quote Is A Serviceable Substitute For Wit.

Remember That It Is Nothing To Do Your Duty, That Is Demanded Of You And Is No More Meritorious Than To Wash Your Hands When They Are Dirty; The Only Thing That Counts Is The Love Of Duty; When Love And Duty Are One, Then Grace Is In You And You Will Enjoy A Happiness Which Passes All Understanding.

Sometimes People Carry To Such Perfection The Mask They Have Assumed That In Due Course They Actually Become The Person They Seem.

I Thought It Was Only In Revealed Religion That A Mistranslation Improved The Sense.

Conscience Is The Guardian In The Individual Of The Rules Which The Community Has Evolved For Its Own Preservation.

Tradition Is A Guide And Not A Jailer.

An Art Is Only Great And Significant If It Is One That All May Enjoy. The Art Of A Clique Is But A Plaything.

Look After Your Laundry, And Your Soul Will Look After Itself.

Thought Provoking

When He Sacrifices Himself Man For A Moment Is Greater Than God, For How Can God, Infinite And Omnipotent, Sacrifice Himself?

I Don't Know Why It Is That The Religious Never Ascribe Common Sense To God.

A God That Can Be Understood Is No God. Who Can Explain The Infinite In Words?

You Know, The Philistines Have Long Since Discarded The Rack And Stake As A Means Of Suppressing The Opinions They Feared: They've Discovered A Much More Deadly Weapon Of Destruction -- The Wisecrack.

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Edward St Aubyn

Lois McMaster Bujold

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