187 quotes
...the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
The Summing Up (1938)
Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love...
The Razor's Edge (1943)
Though he had both esteem and admiration for the sensibility of the human race, he had little respect for their intelligence: man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than to learn the multiplication table.
"It's so wonderful to shut out the world for a few hours. Rest, peace, silence, solitude. You would think they were luxuries that only the very rich can afford, and yet they cost nothing. Strange that they should be so hard to come by."
Christmas Holiday (1939)
Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930)
One of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...
The Razor's Edge (1943)
The sad Don Quixote of a worthless purpose.
The Razor's Edge (1943)
There is no silence in the East.
The Gentleman in the Parlour (1930)
... habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
The Summing Up (1938)
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.
The Razor's Edge (1943)
In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
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.
Cakes and Ale (1930)
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 Moon and Sixpence (1919)
...we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
The Summing Up (1938)
[H]is clothes might have cost a lot even if they were badly cut, and his tie, though rather loud, she recognized as a Charvet.
Theatre: a novel (1951)
Don't you know? Because American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
The Razor's Edge (1943)
He found himself now in the agreeable situation of being able to do what was best for others and at the same time what was convenient to himself.
The Razor's Edge (1943)
...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.
Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930)