The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.
Interpretation
Art serves as a creative escape from the monotonies of life for those who have their basic needs met.
W. Somerset Maugham suggests that art is a sanctuary crafted by clever individuals who, having satisfied their essential needs such as food and companionship, seek to break free from the drudgery of everyday existence. In this view, art becomes a means of transcending the mundane and exploring the depths of human experience and imagination.
In practice
This quote can inspire artists who feel trapped in routine to find freedom in their creative processes.
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.
Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved conversation because it made him thirsty.
Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.' Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.
I do a first draft as passionately and as quickly as I can. I believe a story is valid only when it's immediate and passionate, when it dances out of your subconscious. If you interfere in any way, you destroy it.
'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.
The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.
The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.
The great hope is that people who wouldn't normally make films will be making them. Suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father's camera and for once the so called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever - and it will really become an art form.
An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?
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