W. Somerset Maugham

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.

Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her.

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.

He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.

As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.