For most of us it is not enough to have achieved personal success. One's best friend must also have failed.

W. Somerset Maugham · The source reads: “Now that I've grown old, I realize that for most of us it is not enough to have achieved personal success. One's best friend must also have failed.” · Quoted by Bennett Cerf, Try and Stop Me (1959)

When someone asks for you on the telephone and, finding you out, leaves a message begging you to call him up the moment you come in, and it's important, the matter is more often important to him than to you.

W. Somerset Maugham · The source reads: “I have noticed that when someone asks for you on the telephone and, finding you out, leaves a message begging you to call him up the moment you come in, and it's important, the matter is more often important to him than to you.” · Cakes and Ale (1930), opening line

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

W. Somerset Maugham

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.

W. Somerset Maugham · The Summing Up (1938)

The public appears disposed to be amused even when they are conscious of being deceived.

Phineas T. Barnum · The Life of P. T. Barnum: Written by Himself (1855)

Satire is what closes Saturday night.

George S. Kaufman

Ah, the first day you are on the ship you won’t be feeling very well. The second day you will be feeling better. The third day you will meet a pretty girl and then you will be nearly there.

Winston Churchill · Recorded in Martin Gilbert, 1932

“For most of us it is not enough to have achieved personal success. One's best friend must also have failed.”

“When someone asks for you on the telephone and, finding you out, leaves a message begging you to call him up the moment you come in, and it's important, the matter is more often important to him than to you.”

“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.”

“I would sooner read a timetable or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.”

“The public appears disposed to be amused even when they are conscious of being deceived.”

“Satire is what closes Saturday night.”

“Ah, the first day you are on the ship you won’t be feeling very well. The second day you will be feeling better. The third day you will meet a pretty girl and then you will be nearly there.”

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