"The writer is more concerned to know than to judge"
About this Quote
It’s a quiet manifesto disguised as a mild preference. When Maugham says the writer is “more concerned to know than to judge,” he’s drawing a hard line between literature and the courtroom. “Know” is active, investigative, even a little predatory: to observe people in their contradictions, to learn what they do when no one is rewarding them for virtue. “Judge,” by contrast, is a shortcut - a moral verdict that ends inquiry. For Maugham, verdicts are tidy; lives aren’t.
The intent is partly professional self-defense. As a playwright and storyteller who made a career out of adulteries, bargains, self-deceptions, and social climbing, Maugham understood how quickly audiences confuse depiction with endorsement. He’s insisting on the writer’s right to portray messy behavior without providing the audience a clean moral takeaway. That stance also flatters the reader: you’re invited to watch alongside the author, not be lectured.
The subtext is more skeptical. Judgment is easy and socially profitable; knowing takes patience and a willingness to sit with discomfort. Maugham’s era - post-Victorian, post-World War I, watching old moral certainties wobble - rewarded writers who could anatomize motives without pretending the world still ran on straightforward ethics. His line argues for curiosity as a form of rigor, and maybe as a form of mercy: understanding doesn’t excuse, but it refuses the cheap pleasure of condemnation. In a culture addicted to hot takes, it’s also a rebuke: the writer’s job is to keep the case open.
The intent is partly professional self-defense. As a playwright and storyteller who made a career out of adulteries, bargains, self-deceptions, and social climbing, Maugham understood how quickly audiences confuse depiction with endorsement. He’s insisting on the writer’s right to portray messy behavior without providing the audience a clean moral takeaway. That stance also flatters the reader: you’re invited to watch alongside the author, not be lectured.
The subtext is more skeptical. Judgment is easy and socially profitable; knowing takes patience and a willingness to sit with discomfort. Maugham’s era - post-Victorian, post-World War I, watching old moral certainties wobble - rewarded writers who could anatomize motives without pretending the world still ran on straightforward ethics. His line argues for curiosity as a form of rigor, and maybe as a form of mercy: understanding doesn’t excuse, but it refuses the cheap pleasure of condemnation. In a culture addicted to hot takes, it’s also a rebuke: the writer’s job is to keep the case open.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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