The Moon and Sixpence (Vintage International) (Dover Value Editions) (The collected edition of the works of W. Somerset Maugham) (Modern English Language Texts) (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (Reed Audio) (Transaction Large Print S.)

by W Somerset Maugham

[jamiereadthis]

Someone would have had to physically pry this book out of my clutches last night to get me to eat dinner. Finished it in five hours flat without intending anything of the sort. I couldn’t put it down. I know I say this a lot but Maugham, goddamn.

“But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart? Certainly not those who expect from it only decorous sentiments and normal emotions.”

And this:

I remember saying to him: “Look here, if everyone acted like you, the world couldn’t go on.”

“That’s a damned silly thing to say. Everyone doesn’t want to act like me. The great majority are perfectly content to do the ordinary thing.”

And once I sought to be satirical.

“You evidently don’t believe in the maxim: Act so that every one of your actions is capable of being made into a universal rule.”

“I never heard it before, but it’s rotten nonsense.”

“Well, it was Kant who said it.”

“I don’t care; it’s rotten nonsense.”