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The Painted Veil Quotes
I respect him. He has brains and character; and that, I may tell you, is a very unusual combination.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Everything passed, and what trace of its passage remained? It seemed to Kitty that they were all, the human race, like the drops of water in that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Supposing there is no life everlasting. Think what it means if death is really the end of all things. They’ve given up all for nothing. They’ve been cheated. They’re dupes.”Waddington reflected for a little while. “I wonder if it matters what they have aimed at is illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books the write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
She says it’s really not very flattering to her that the women who fall in love with her husband are so uncommonly second-rate.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan’t make the mistakes I’ve made. When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I’m going to bring up my daughter so that she’s free and can stand on her own feet. I´m not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he’s willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
She’s wonderful. Tell her I’ve never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you.”Waddington, smiling, translated the question.“She says I’m good.”“As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue, ” Kitty mocked.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them. Kitty knew too well that she had done nothing to beget her father’s affection, he had never counted in the house and had been taken for granted, the bread-winner who was a little despised because he could provide no more luxuriously for his family; but she had taken for granted that he loved her just because he was her father, and it was a shock to discover that his heart was empty of feeling for her. She had known that they were all bored by him, but it had never occurred to her that he was equally bored by them. He was as ever kind and subdued, but the sad perspicacity which she had learnt in suffering suggested to her that, though he probably never acknowledged it to himself and never would, in his heart he disliked her.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Perhaps her faults and follies, the unhappiness she had suffered, were not entirely vain if she could follow the path that now she dimly discerned before her, not the path that kind funny old Waddington had spoken of that led nowhither, but the path those dear nuns at the convent followed so humbly, the path that led to peace.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
It was like making a blunder at a party; there was nothing to do about it, it was dreadfully mortifying, but it showed a lack of sense to ascribe too much importance to it.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
How silly men were! Their part in procreation was so unimportant; it was the woman who carried the child through long months of uneasiness and bore it with pain, and yet a man because of his momentary connection made such preposterous claims. Why should that make any difference to him in his feelings towards the child?
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
How strange was the relation between parents and children! When they were small the parents doted on them, passed through agonies of apprehension at each childish ailment, and the children clung to their parents with love and adoration; a few years passed, the children grew up, and persons not of their kin were more important to their happiness than father or mother. Indifference displaced the blind and instinctive love of the past. Their meetings were a source of boredom and irritation. Distracted once at the thought of a month’s separation they were able now to look forward with equanimity to being parted for years.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
If a man hasn’t what’s necessary to make a woman love him, it’s his fault, not hers.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
I know that you’re selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven’t the nerve of a rabbit, I know you’re a liar and a humbug, I know that you’re utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is’–her face was on a sudden distraught with pain–‘the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?’The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly.Oh, my dear, it’s rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he’s in love with you.’Didn’t you mean them?’At the moment.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
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.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
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