Quotes from W. Somerset Maugham, 1900

The rich death-colours of autumn were like an infinitely sad melody, like a sad song of unavailing regret; but in those passionate tints, in the red and the gold of the apples, in the varied hue of the fallen leaves, there was still something which forbade one to forget that in the death and decay of nature there is always the beginning of other life.

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing.

I felt myself like a foolish bird, a bird born in a cage without power to attain freedom... I walked along the fields, by the neat iron railing with which they were enclosed. All about me was visible the care of man. Nature herself seemed under the power of the formal influence, and flourished with rigidity and decorum. Nothing was left wild. The trees were lopped into proper shape, cut down here where their presence seemed inelegant and planted there to complete the symmetry of a group.

To the lover waiting for his love no sound is sadder than the tardy striking of the hours.

The morning crept out of a dark cloud like an unbidden guest uncertain of his welcome.