W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Night is the mother of counsels.

I like to know how I'm supposed to feel about things. Just a little clue or hint.

At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year's planting

Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can see only when it’s dark

Seeing the Way is like going into a dark room with a torch; the darkness instantly departs, while the light alone remains. When the Way is attained and the truth is seen, ignorance vanishes and enlightenment abides forever.

More than fear of loving bears or birds bigger than cows, I fear pathless nights. How, I wonder, can I find you in the dark?

Friendship maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts.

The truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark. It scares you witless, but in time you see things clear and stark.

As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.

I'm confused, and brilliant books help me to be less so.

It was all so clear now. Like everything had been lost in darkness, and then the sun came out. Some moments are like that.

Instead of always asking yourself how to clear up your mental fog, learn to ask: "Can confusion know anything about clarity?"

You can't discover light, by analyzing the dark.

Vladimir: I don't understand. Estragon: Use your intelligence, can't you? Vladimir uses his intelligence. Vladimir: (finally) I remain in the dark.

She lay in the dark and knew everything.

It is good for a man to invite his ghosts into his warm interior, out of the wild night, into the firelight, out of the howling dark.

It is not confused. We are.

Before you attempt to set things right, make sure you see things right.

I am the shadow on the moon at night/Filling your dreams to the brim with fright.

Light our fire and protect us from the dark, blah blah, light our way and keep us toasty warm, the night is dark and full of terrors, save us from the scary things, and blah blah blah some more.

...and the night is so deep and dark that I wonder if the sun will ever come up.

when driven to the necessity of explaining, I found that I did not myself understand what I meant.

Daddy is trying really fugging hard to think of a not-terrifying reason why you'd wake Daddy up in the middle of the night to ask that fugging question. But no. No. Daddy does not have a match or a lighter.

Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needsbe delightful and rejoicing.

For the night is dark and full of terrors.