A Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. — © W. Somerset Maugham
It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
Now it is a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. If you utterly decline to make do with what you can get, then somehow or other, you are very likely to get what you want.
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
To refuse to accept the call of your best life is to insult the force that created you.
It is far easier, though not very easy, to develop and preserve a spiritual outlook on life than it is to make our everyday actions harmonize with that spiritual outlook. For though we may renounce the world for ourselves, refuse the attempt to get anything out of it, we have to accept it as the sphere in which we are to co-operate with the Spirit, and try to do the Will.
I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
I am a Divine, magnificent expression of life, and deserve the very best. I accept miracles. I accept healing. I accept wholeness. And most of all, I accept myself. I am precious, and I cherish who I am.
I think all good drama is funny. All the best drama is ultimately very funny. Life is funny. You can't have any honest treatise on life without bumping into some humor.
Some men and women are inquisitive about everything, they are always asking, if they see any one with anything they ask what is that thing, what is it you are carrying, what are you going to be doing with that thing, why have you that thing, where did you get that thing, how long will you have that thing, there are very many men and women who want to know about anything about everything.
It's funny because you do often read in recounts of very famous albums, people tend to focus on mistakes in really positive ways, and there's certain mistakes of my own that I always do find on every record that I needed to accept. I find it really interesting to talk about. I always write songs at the wrong tempos, and I have to learn to accept that a little bit.
I'm very focused on what I do professionally, and I'm very focused on my family, and I don't really get too stressed out about what people say or what other people think. In fact, it's not on my radar at all. If there's anything negative, I don't want to know about it. I just do my own thing and get on with my life.
I'm a natural clown, I suppose, in writing, and one has to accept that; I can't do anything about it. I have written one or two novels which are not specifically funny. I wrote a study of Shakespeare which was not intended to be funny, but some people regard it as such.
I came upon whatever I'm doing organically. I didn't study anything. I don't have any real aspirations other than to connect with somebody, and to have the conversation be genuine. That's the best that can happen. Even if it only happens for 10 minutes in an episode. But I think what people forget is that you don't have to try to get a comedian to be funny. Comedians are innately funny. That the real challenge of talking to them is to get them talking about real things and then see where they need to be funny. And let them do that on their own volition.
Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the stateof victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, "they" don't want me, "they" accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, "they" don't deserve me.
For those in love with an illusion often refuse to accept reality
Most of the jokes that I wrote were funny and there always seems to be an aspect of comedy in my long-form work. I think that's how life is. I think even the more dramatic moments of one's life are often punctuated by very funny comments or situations. I like to say, "Keep your comedy serious and your drama funny, and you'll be pretty true to life."
As a writer myself, my job has very often been to also write on the job. So you get the script and a vague idea of how the scene might work, and you then add funny words or change the script. I'm not the world's best writer or the world's best actor, but I can do that thing where I can fix - or ruin - fix-slash-ruin, add quirk, add value.
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