Daily Inspiration Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

A writer’s slap on the wrist, delivered with the brisk authority of someone who’s watched too many clever people talk themselves out of clarity. "Have common sense and stick to the point" isn’t a Hallmark bromide; it’s Maugham policing the boundary between art and self-indulgence. The line carries the impatience of a working playwright: in the theater, you don’t get infinite pages to discover your theme. Actors have to say the words, audiences can cough, and boredom is measurable in real time.

The intent is practical, almost managerial. Maugham is urging discipline over ornament, decisions over dithering. "Common sense" here doesn’t mean anti-intellectualism; it means an allegiance to consequences. What does a scene do? What does an argument change? What does a character want, and what blocks them? "Stick to the point" reads like craft advice, but the subtext is moral: respect the reader’s time, respect the audience’s attention, respect the story’s internal logic.

Context matters: Maugham made his name in a world that prized polish and social observation, yet he distrusted the peacock swagger of high-minded verbosity. His era had plenty of rhetoric, ideology, and literary posturing; he replies with a scalpel. The quote works because it flatters no one. It suggests that lucidity is not a gift, it’s a stance, and that most failures of writing (and conversation) aren’t tragic-they’re avoidable.