The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed.

—W. Somerset Maugham

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.

—W. Somerset Maugham

The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.

—W. Somerset Maugham

Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man who isn't quite so delightful but a little more sincere.

—W. Somerset Maugham

It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.

—W. Somerset Maugham

It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.

—Woody Allen

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

—Soren Kierkegaard

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run—and often in the short one—the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.

—Arthur C. Clarke

Time passes too quickly when you're getting ready to do something you don't want to do.

—Courtney Summers in Some Girls Are