-W. Somerset Maugham. (The Summing Up)"...words are tyrannical things, they exist for their meanings, and if you will not pay attention to these, you cannot pay attention at all."
What can you add to that? The Summing Up was his autobiography and his statement on the world as he knew it. I have a nice old hardback copy from 1938. He'd write another 26 books in the next 24 years strangely putting it in the middle of his career. His biggest most enduring books The Razors Edge and Of Human Bondage weren't published until 1944 and 1946 respectively. So in reading his words it is doubly interested to read what he thought of words, and most especially his own words. More here.
