# Quote — William Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook

> Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.

- Author: [William Somerset Maugham](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham.md)
- Book: [A Writer's Notebook](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham/a-writers-notebook.md)
- Page: 196
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._Somerset_Maugham#A_Writer's_Notebook_(1946)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham/a-writers-notebook/things-were-easier

## More from this book

> She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.

p. 189 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham/a-writers-notebook/she-plunged-into.md)

> There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.

p. 38 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham/a-writers-notebook/there-is-no-object.md)

> 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.

p. 48 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham/a-writers-notebook/in-the-country.md)