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de55357
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I guessed that he would have a passionate bedfellow that night, but would never know to what prickings of conscience he owed her ardor.
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sex
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2d03a09
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Mary Ann did not like Miss Wilkinson and called her an old cat.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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ee869aa
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I was shocked and thrilled by what Mary-Ann told me, but I had difficulty in believing it. I had read too many novels and had learnt too much at school not to know a good deal about love, but I thought it was a matter that only concerned young people. I could not conceive that a man with a beard, who had sons as old as I, could have any feelings of that sort. I thought when you married all that was finished. That people over thirty should b..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0313910
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Her tears increased her emotion, and she pressed the little boy to her heart. She felt vaguely the pity of that child deprived of the only love in the world that is quite unselfish.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e923015
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iculous because at his age he had not enjoyed that which all fiction taught him was the most important thing in life; but he had the unfortunate gift of seeing things as they were, and the reality which was offered him differed too terribly from the ideal of his dreams.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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ace4d67
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Whenever he started a book with two solitary travellers riding along the brink of a desperate ravine he knew he was safe. The
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8287b2a
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had pale scanty hair and an earthy skin;
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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119ee48
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Men of letters, following in the painters' wake, conspired suddenly to find artistic value in the turns; and red-nosed comedians were lauded to the skies for their sense of character; fat female singers, who had bawled obscurely for twenty years, were discovered to possess inimitable drollery; there were those who found an aesthetic delight in performing dogs; while others exhausted their vocabulary to extol the distinction of conjurers and..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b54e514
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I was growing stale in London. I was tired of doing much the same thing every day. My friends pursued their course with uneventfulness; they had no longer any surprises for me, and when I met them I knew pretty well what they would say; even their love-affairs had a tedious banality. We were like tram-cars running on their lines from terminus to terminus, and it was possible to calculate within small limits the number of passengers they wou..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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bbf12e6
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He was thankful not to have to believe in God, for then such a condition of things would be intolerable; one could reconcile oneself to existence only because it was meaningless.(the whole world was like a sick-house, and there was no rhyme or reason in it)
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god
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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be8c166
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He did not seem to care much about the Paris he was now seeing for the first time (I did not count the visit with his wife), and he accepted sights which must have been strange to him without any sense of astonishment. I have been to Paris a hundred times, and it never fails to give me a thrill of excitement; I can never walk its streets without feeling myself on the verge of adventure. Strickland remained placid. Looking back, I think now ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9d1cbac
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Mrs. Strickland had the gift of sympathy. It is a charming faculty, but one often abused by those who are conscious of its possession, for there is something ghoulish in the avidity with which they will pounce upon the misfortune of their friends so that they may exercise their dexterity.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6b5dbbf
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I suppose you're going to say that I'm not a good mother.'
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parenthood
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e6efa08
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I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, nor how much goodness in the reprobate.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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fab5fce
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they could keep order better than a foreigner, and, since they knew the grammar as well as any Frenchman, it seemed unimportant that none of them could have got a cup of coffee in the restaurant at Boulogne unless the waiter had known a little English.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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debc5e3
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People wonder at the romantic lives of poets and artists, but they should rather wonder at their gift of expression. The occurrences which pass unnoticed in the life of the average man in the existence of a writer of talent are profoundly interesting. It is the man they happen to that makes their significance.
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experiences
poets
writer
writing
maugham
w-somerset-maugham
expression
authors
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1f9be0a
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But here was a man who sincerely did not mind what people thought of him, and so convention had no hold on him; he was like a wrestler whose body is oiled; you could not get a grip on him; it gave him a freedom which was an outrage.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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96c3207
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The adventure was like a blunder that one had committed at a party so horrible that one felt nothing could be done to excuse it: the only remedy was to forget.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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39f7529
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Mne neponiatno, pochemu mnogikh liudei mysl' o samoubiistve privodit v uzhas. Govorit', chto eto trusost', -- nelepo. Esli chelovek sam ukhodit iz zhizni, kogda v zhizni ego ne zhdet nichego, krome boli i goria, ia mogu tol'ko odobrit' ego postupok. Razve ne skazal Plinii, chto vozmozhnost' umeret' kogda zakhochesh' luchshee, chto bog dal cheloveku v ego polnoi stradanii zhizni? Ostaviv v storone tekh, kto schitaet samoubiistvo grekhovnym,..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e448be9
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one could do a dastardly thing if one chose, but it was contemptible to regret it afterwards.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e12ea84
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It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one's own absurdity.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d2ba832
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I'm clever, I know it, and why shouldn't I acknowledge it?' While
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e149949
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It seemed to him that all his life he had followed the ideals that other people, by their words or their writings, had instilled into him, and never the desires of his own heart. Always his course had been swayed by what he thought he should do and never by what he wanted with his whole soul to do. He put that all aside now with a gesture of impatience.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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4446989
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the mask of custom was torn off rudely, showing you the soul all raw.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a74c144
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He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightning on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1a3c8be
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the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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f0364b5
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E entao o diabo o conduziu a um monte muito alto e mostrou-lhe os reinos do mundo, dizendo: "Todas estas coisas te darei se, prostrado, me adorares". Mas Jesus respondeu: "Vai-te, Satanas". De acordo com o bom e simples sao Mateus, foi este o fim da historia. Mas nao foi, nao. O demonio era astucioso e de novo veio a Jesus: "Se aceitares a vergonha e a ignominia, a flagelacao, uma coroa de espinhos e a morte na cruz, salvaras a humanidade, ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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65204ec
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There are people who cannot read Tom Jones. I am not thinking of those who never read anything but the newspapers and the illustrated weeklies, or of those who never read anything but detective stories; I am thinking of those who would not demure if you classed them as members of the intelligentsia, of those who read and re-read Pride and Prejudice with delight, Middlemarch with self-complacency, and The Golden Bowl with reverence. The chan..
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W Somerset Maugham |
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ea2841c
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don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2bf0648
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Philip discovered that the greatest tragedy of life to these people was not separation or death, that was natural and the grief of it could be assuaged with tears, but loss of work.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8e3d9dc
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There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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660f08c
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He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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eb062c4
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You want to taste sugar, you don't want to become sugar. What is individuality but the expression of our egoism? Until the soul has shed the last trace of that it cannot become one with the Absolute.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e51aa81
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she bombarded him with telegrams, asking him if he were ill and had received her letters; she said his silence made her dreadfully anxious.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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bb7dd03
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Her painting was vaporous and unsubstantial, but it had a flowerlike grace and even a certain careless elegance.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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35f4085
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Of course schools are made for the average. The holes are all round, and whatever shape the pegs are they must wedge in somehow. One hasn't time to bother about anything but the average." Then"
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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51083cc
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People say a lot of hard things about us brokers, but there are brokers and brokers. I don't want people to lose money, I want them to make it, and the way they act, most of them, you'd think their one object in life was to get rid of every cent they have.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e359c3e
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One of her most amiable traits was that she was never affronted by the naked truth.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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5e621f9
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I don't think so. It was merely a physical attraction. You know, often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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32dbb1c
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She loved him now with a new love because he had made her suffer.
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w-somerset-maugham
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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64579b3
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He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.
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w-somerset-maugham
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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64112a7
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Elliott, the costume too large now for his emaciated frame, looked like a chorus man in an early opera of Verdi's.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2e47330
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They had grown in three years and were now long-legged, skinny, vivacious little creatures, with little at present of their mother's beauty, but with nice manners and an insatiable curiosity.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6fd0d0e
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I suppose only a Frenchman can appreciate to the full the grace and grandeur of Racine and the music of his verse, but even a foreigner, once he has accustomed himself to the periwigged formality of the style, can hardly fail to be moved by his passionate tenderness and by the nobility of his sentiment.
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W. Somerset Maugham |