"But there must've been a Death Star canteen, yeah? There must've been a cafeteria downstairs, in between battles, where Darth Vader could just chill and go down: "I will have the penne all'arrabbiata." "You'll need a tray." "Do you know who I am?" "Do you know who I am?" "This is not a game of who the fuck are you. For I am Vader, Darth Vader, Lord Vader. I can kill you with a single thought." "Well, you'll still need a tray." "No, I will not need a tray. I do not need a tray to kill you. I can kill you without a tray, with the power of the Force, which is strong within me. Even though I could kill you with a tray if I so wished, for I would hack at your neck with the thin bit until the blood flowed across the canteen floor." "No, the food is hot. You'll need a tray to put the food on." "Oh, I see, the food is hot. I'm sorry, I did not realize...Ha..ha..ha.h.. I thought you were challenging me for the fight to death." "A fight to the death? This is a canteen, I work here." "Yes, but I am Vader. I am Lord Vader? Every one challenges me to a fight to the death.""

"Makeup's just crazy, anyways. Native Americans used to wear it, and it did all right for them until, uh … well, until you killed them all, I suppose."

"There's 200,000 gods in Hinduism … and they've got gods like Shiva, the God of Creation and Destruction. Which is a good god to be, 'cause you can go *whoom* [creates thing] "What do you think? Do you like that? You don't like that?" *whoom* [destroys thing] If you're just the God of Creation, you're going *whoom* "Do you like that? You don't? All right, I'll put it in the garage … shit, I haven't got a garage!" *whoom* [creates garage]"

"Pope Pius XII was meant to go and castigate Hitler for being a [air quotes] "Genocidal Fuckhead … [air quotes again] with bunny rabbit ears". But he didn't, he wimped out, and for that history has renamed that Pope as "Pope Gutless Bastard I.""

"... habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous."

"Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young."

"The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill."

"I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues."

"You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn."

"...we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others."

"...the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now."

"I have not been afraid of excess: excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit."

"There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain."

"There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself."

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

"They are like a face full of character that intrigues and excites you, but that on closer acquaintance you discover is merely the mask of a vulgar soul. Such is Tourane."

"The Chinese are the aristocracy of the East."

"Mandalay has its name; the falling cadence of the lovely word has gathered about itself the chiaroscuro of romance."

"There is no silence in the East."

"The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes..."

"...when you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right..."

"It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer."

"...you know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism."

"Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all."

"Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job."

"It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it."

"Both these men are in love with Natasha, Count Rostov's younger daughter, and in her Tolstoy has created the most delightful girl in fiction. Nothing is so difficult as to portray a young girl who is at once charming and interesting. Generally the young girls of fiction are colorless (Amelia in Vanity Fair), priggish (Fanny in Mansfield Park), too clever by half (Constantia Durham in The Egoist), or little geese (Dora in David Copperfield), silly flirts or innocent beyound belief. It is understandable that they should be an awkward subject for the novelist to deal with, for at that tender age the personality is undeveloped. Similarly a painter can only make a face interesting when the vicissitudes of life, thought, love and suffering have given it character. In the portrait of a girl the best he can do is to represent the charm and beauty of youth. But Natasha is entirely natural. She is sweet, sensitive, and sympathetic, willful, childish, womanly already, idealistic, quick-tempered, warm-hearted, headstrong, capricious and in everything enchanting. Tolstoy created many women and they are wonderfully true to life, but never another who wins the affection of the reader as does Natasha."

"Tahiti is very far away, and I knew that I should never see it again. A chapter of my life was closed, and I felt a little nearer to inevitable death."

"Men are always the same. Fear makes them cruel."

"Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history."

"He made one laugh sometimes by speaking the truth, but this is a form of humour which gains its force only by its unusualness; it would cease to amuse if it were commonly practised."

"But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart? Certainly not those who expect from it only decorous sentiments and normal emotions."

"Self-doubt, which is the artist's bitterest enemy."

"Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem."

"“A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her,” he said, “but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.”"

"The writer is more concerned to know than to judge."

"We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us."

"One of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly."

"I am a little shy of any assumption of moral indignation. There is always in it an element of self-satisfaction which makes it awkward to anyone who has a sense of humour."

"W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories, I (Penguin Books, 1977)"

"Sri Bhagavan went into the room, took a seat and gazed on Mr. Maugham. He regained his senses and saluted Sri Bhagavan. They remained silent and sat facing each other for nearly an hour. The author [Maugham] attempted to ask questions but did not speak. Maj. Chadwick encouraged him to ask. Sri Bhagavan said, “All finished. Heart-talk is all talk. All talk must end in silence only.” They smiled and Sri Bhagavan left the room.’"

"Then there was Somerset Maugham, a grim figure; rat-eyed; dead man cheeked, unshaven; a criminal I should have said had I met him on a bus."

"He couldn't write for toffee, bless his heart. He wrote conventional short stories, much inferior to the work of other people. But they were much better than his plays, which were too frightful. He was an extremely interesting man though, not a bit clever or cold or cynical. I know of many affectionate things he did. He had a great capacity for falling in love with the wrong people. His taste seemed to give way under him so extraordinarily sometimes. He fascinated me by his appearance; he was so neatly made, like a swordstick that fits just so. Occasionally his conversation was beautifully funny and quite unmalicious. I object strongly to pictures of Maugham as if he were a second-rate Hollywood producer in the lavish age."

"All the way from Maugham and de Maupassant and Chekhov to Ring Lardner the short story has served to portray the characteristics, the habits, the manners, the morals, the emotions of a nation, a whole people."

"The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety."

"The crown of literature is poetry."

"No gray hairs streak my soul, no grandfatherly fondness there! I shake the world with the might of my voice, and walk—handsome, twentytwoyearold."

"It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection."

"I know just where I stand ... in the very first row of the second-raters."