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The Tragedy Of Love Is Not Death Or Separation. How Long Do You Think It Would Have Been Before One Or Other Of Them Ceased To Care? Oh, It Is Dreadfully Bitter To Look At A Woman Whom You Have Loved With All Your Heart And Soul, So That You Felt You Could Not Bear To Let Her Out Of Your Sight, And Realize That You Would Not Mind If You Never Saw Her Again. The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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The Tragedy Of Love

W. Somerset Maugham

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The Tragedy Of Love Is Not Death Or Separation. How Long Do You Think It Would Have Been Before One Or Other Of Them Ceased To Care? Oh, It Is Dreadfully Bitter To Look At A Woman Whom You Have Loved With All Your Heart And Soul, So That You Felt You Could Not Bear To Let Her Out Of Your Sight, And Realize That You Would Not Mind If You Never Saw Her Again. The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

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Perfect Is Determined In Shortened Measures Of Time, Not Over Long Periods Of Time Or Lifetimes. It Would Be Unnatural.

It Does The Heart Good To Look At You.

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We Do Not Write Because We Want To; We Write Because We Have To.

Things Were Easier For The Old Novelists Who Saw People All Of A Piece. Speaking Generally, Their Heroes Were Good Through And Through, Their Villains Wholly Bad.

There Is No Cruelty Greater Than A Woman's To A Man Who Loves Her And Whom She Does Not Love; She Has No Kindness Then, No Tolerance Even, She Has Only An Insane Irritation.

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Dullness Is The First Requisite Of A Good Husband.

If It Is Necessary Sometimes To Lie To Others, It Is Always Despicable To Lie To Oneself.

I Have Always Been Convinced That If A Woman Once Made Up Her Mind To Marry A Man, Nothing But Instant Flight Could Save Him.

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

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

The World Is Quickly Bored By The Recital Of Misfortune, And Willing Avoids The Sight Of Distress.

It Must Be That To Govern A Nation You Need A Specific Talent And That This May Very Well Exist Without General Ability.

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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.

The Secret To Life Is Meaningless Unless You Discover It Yourself.

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

You Are Not Angry With People When You Laugh At Them. Humour Teaches Tolerance, And The Humorist, With A Smile And Perhaps A Sigh, Is More Likely To Shrug His Shoulders Than To Condemn.

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

We Find Things Beautiful Because We Recognize Them And Contrariwise We Find Things Beautiful Because Their Novelty Surprises Us.

Unfortunately Sometimes One Can't Do What One Thinks Is Right Without Making Someone Else Unhappy.

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

Art Is Triumphant When It Can Use Convention As An Instrument Of Its Own Purpose.

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

Beauty Is An Ecstasy; It Is As Simple As Hunger.

You Are Not Angry With People When You Laugh At Them. Humor Teaches Tolerance.

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Enjoy It While It Lasts

No Author Can Create A Character Out Of Nothing. He Must Have A Model To Give Him A Starting Point; But Then His Imagination Goes To Work, He Builds Him Up, Adding A Trait Here, A Trait There, Which His Model Did Not Possess.

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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.

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

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Congratulations

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Suffering Of Others

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The Artist Produces For The Liberation Of His Soul.

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The Writer Is More Concerned To Know Than To Judge.

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Music-hall Songs Provide The Dull With Wit, Just As Proverbs Provide Them With Wisdom.

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It Is Well Known That Beauty Does Not Look With A Good Grace On The Timid Advances Of Humour.

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Refecting On The High Divorce Rate In America As Contrasted With England "american Women Expect To Find In Their Husbands A Perfection That English Women Only Hope To Find In Their Butlers

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

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

It Must Be A Fault In Me That I Am Not Gravely Shocked At The Sins Of Others Unless They Personally Affect Me.

A Good Story Is Obviously A Difficult Thing To Invent, But Its Difficulty Is A Poor Reason For Despising It.

The Average American Can Get Into The Kingdom Of Heaven Much More Easily Than He Can Get Into The Boulevard St. Germain.

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

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.

A Woman Can Forgive A Man For The Harm He Does Her...but She Can Never Forgive Him For The Sacrifices He Makes On Her Account.

The Riviera Isn't Only A Sunny Place For Shady People.

It Is An Illusion That Youth Is Happy, An Illusion Of Those Who Have Lost It; But The Young Know They Are Wretched For They Are Full Of The Truthless Ideals Which Have Been Instilled In Them, And Each Time They Come Into Contact With The Real, They Are Bruised And Wounded.

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

Our Natural Egoism Leads Us To Judge People By Their Relations To Ourselves. We Want Them To Be Certain Things To Us, And For Us That Is What They Are; Because The Rest Of Them Is No Good To Us, We Ignore It.

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

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

We 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

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

A Unitarian Very Earnestly Disbelieves What Everyone Else Believes.

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

The Artist Produces For The Liberation Of His Soul. It Is His Nature To Create As It Is The Nature Of Water To Run Down The Hill.

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

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Explanation For Evil. It Must Be Looked Upon As A Necessary Part Of The Order Of The Universe. To Ignore It Is Childish, To Bewail It Senseless.

Each One Of Us Is Alone In The World. He Is Shut In A Tower Of Brass, And Can Communicate With His Fellows Only By Signs, And The Signs Have No Common Value, So That Their Sense Is Vague And Uncertain. We Seek Pitifully To Convey To Others The Treasures Of Our Heart, But They Have Not The Power To Accept Them, And So We Go Lonely, Side By Side But Not Together, Unable To Know Our Fellows And Unknown By Them.

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?

If You Don't Change Your Beliefs, Your Life Will Be Like This Forever. Is That Good News?

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?

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

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 Could Have Forgiven It If He'd Fallen Desperately In Love With Someone And Gone Off With Her. I Should Have Thought That Natural. I Shouldn't Really Have Blamed Him. I Should Have Thought He Was Led Away. Men Are So Weak, And Women Are So Unscrupulous.

It Needs A Good Deal Of Philosophy Not To Be Mortified By The Thought Of Persons Who Have Voluntarily Abandoned Everything That For The Most Of Us Makes Life Worth Living And Are Devoid Of Envy Of What They Have Missed. I Have Never Made Up My Mind Whether They Are Fools Or Wise Men.

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.

The Ideas For Stories That Thronged My Brain Would Not Let Me Rest Till I Had Got Rid Of Them By Writing Them.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Man's Desire For The Approval Of His Fellows Is So Strong, His Dread Of Their Censure So Violent, That He Himself Has Brought His Enemy (conscience) Within His Gates; And It Keeps Watch Over Him, Vigilant Always In The Interests Of Its Master To Crush Any Half-formed Desire To Break Away From The Herd.

Heaven Knows What Pains The Author Has Been At, What Bitter Experience He Has Endured And What Heartache Suffered, To Give Some Chance Reader A Few Hours' Relaxation Or To While Away The Tedium Of A Journey.

The Humorist Has A Good Eye For The Humbug; He Does Not Always Recognize The Saint.

I Happen To Think 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.

Some People Read For Instruction, Which Is Praiseworthy, And Some For Pleasure, Which Is Innocent, But Not A Few Read From Habit, And I Suppose That This Is Neither Innocent Or Praiseworthy. Of That Lamentable Company Am I. Conversation After A Time Bores Me, Games Tire Me And My Own Thoughts, Which We Are Told Are The Unfailing Resource Of A Sensible Man, Have A Tendency To Run Dry. Then I Fly To My Book As The Opium-smoker To His Pipe.

Love Is Only A Dirty Trick Played On Us To Achieve Continuation Of The Species.

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

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

It Is Good To Be On Your Guard Against An Englishman Who Speaks French Perfectly; He Is Very Likely To Be A Card-sharper Or An Attache In The Diplomatic Service.

Only A Mediocre Person Is Always At His Best.

A Man Who Is A Politician At Forty Is A Statesman At Three Score And Ten. It Is At This Age, When He Would Be Too Old To Be A Clerk Or A Gardener Or A Police-court Magistrate, That He Is Ripe To Govern A Country.

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.

There's Always One Who Loves And One Who Lets Himself Be Loved.

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.

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.

Beauty Is An Ecstasy; It Is As Simple As Hunger. There Is Really Nothing To Be Said About It. It Is Like The Perfume Of A Rose: You Can Smell It And That Is All.

Women Are Constantly Trying To Commit Suicide For Love, But Generally They Take Care Not To Succeed.

Perfection Is A Trifle Dull. It Is Not The Least Of Life's Ironies That This, Which We All Aim At, Is Better Not Quite Achieved.

I Made Up My Mind Long Ago That Life Was Too Short To Do Anything For Myself That I Could Pay Others To Do For Me.

As The Cosmos Are In Place, So Be It With Your Life.

Imagination Grows By Exercise, And Contrary To Common Belief, Is More Powerful In The Mature Than In The Young.

Only Mediocre People Are At The Best All The Time.

The Inclination To Digress Is Human. But The Dramatist Must Avoid It Even More Strenuously Than The Saint Must Avoid Sin, For While Sin May Be Venial, Digression Is Mortal.

The Essential Element Of Love Is A Belief In Its Own Eternity.

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

She Says It's Really Not Very Flattering To Her That The Women Who Fall In Love With Her Husband Are So Uncommonly Second-rate.

Falling In Love

It Was Like Making A Blunder At A Party; There Was Nothing To Do About It, It Was Dreadfully Mortifying, But It Showed A Lack Of Sense To Ascribe Too Much Importance To It.

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.

A Good Rule For Writers: Do Not Explain Overmuch.

The Drama Is Make-believe. It Does Not Deal With Truth But With Effect.

The End Of Culture Is Right Living

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

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

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

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.

Women Are Often Under The Impression That Men Are Much More Madly In Love With Them Than They Really Are.

The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry. It Is Its End And Aim. It Is The Sublimest Activity Of The Human Mind. It Is The Achievement Of Beauty And Delicacy. The Writer Of Prose Can Only Step Aside When The Poet Passes.

I [death] Was Astonished To See Him In Baghdad, For I Had An Appointment With Him Tonight In Samarra.

If Only The Good Were A Little Less Heavy-footed

Perhaps Some Deep-rooted Atavism Urges The Wanderer Back To Lands Which His Ancestors Left In The Dim Beginnings Of History. Sometimes A Man Hits Upon A Place To Which He Mysteriously Feels That He Belongs. Here Is The Home He Sought, And He Will Settle Amid Scenes That He Has Never Seen Before, Among Men He Has Never Known, As Though They Were Familiar To Him From His Birth. Here At Last He Finds Rest.

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.

Perfection Has One Grave Defect: It Is Apt To Be Dull.

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

It Is Salutary To Train Oneself To Be No More Affected By Censure Than By Praise.

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 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

Almost All The People Who’ve Had The Most Effect On Me I Seem To Have Met By Chance, Yet Looking Back It Seems As Though I Couldn’t But Have Met Them.

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

We Have Long Passed The Victorian Era When Asterisks Were Followed After A Certain Interval By A Baby.

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

Sherry, The Civilized Drink.

"do You Like Card Tricks?" "no, I Hate Card Tricks," I Answered. "well, I`ll Just Show You This One." He Showed Me Three.

The Spirit Is Often Most Free When The Body Is Satiated With Pleasure; Indeed, Sometimes The Stars Shine More Brightly Seen From The Gutter Than From The Hilltop.

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

They Say A Woman Always Remembers Her First Lover With Affection; But Perhaps She Does Not Always Remember Him.

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.

Habits In Writing As In Life Are Only Useful If They Are Broken As Soon As They Cease To Be Advantageous.

No Man In His Heart Is Quite So Cynical As A Well-bred Woman.

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

Art, If It Is To Be Reckoned As One Of The Great Values Of Life, Must Teach Man Humility, Tolerance, Wisdom And Magnanimity. The Value Of Art Is Not Beauty, But Right Action.

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.

I Do Not Confer Praise Or Blame: I Accept. I Am The Measure Of All Things. I Am The Center Of The World.

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Michael Clarke Duncan

Cullen Hightower

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