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Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful but love-starved Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small... read more

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  • “I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”
    Waddington
  • “She wished to despise him, because so long as she only hated him she knew that she was very near loving him”
    Kitty Fane
  • “I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.”
    kitty Fane
  • “If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.”
    Kitty Fane
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • “You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.”
    Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers
  • “Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.”
    Highlighted by 23 Kindle customers
  • Beauty is also a gift of God, one of the most rare and precious, and we should be thankful if we are happy enough to possess it and thankful, if we are not, that others possess it for our pleasure.”
    Highlighted by 18 Kindle customers
  • “It’s the last line of Goldsmith’s Elegy.”
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  • “Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.”
    Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers
  • “I wonder. I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”
    Highlighted by 15 Kindle customers
  • “Well, you know, women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.”
    Highlighted by 15 Kindle customers
  • When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.
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  • Was it not pitiful that men, tarrying so short a space in a world where there was so much pain, should thus torture themselves?
    Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers
  • “There is only one way to win hearts and that is to make oneself like unto those of whom one would be loved.”
    Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers
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Setting & Locations edit see section history

First Sentence edit see section history

She gave a startled cry.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 2 of 11 in The Bibliophile Club - Selected Reads of 2010. (community list)
This is book 201002 of 31 in The Bibliophile Club - Monthly Selected Reads. (community list)
This book is in KCPL Discussion Kit (Aug2010). (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. W. Somerset Maugham (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Heinemann
Country: Great Britain
Publication Date: 1925
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 256

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: 75025362
  • Dewey: 823.912

Movie Connections edit see section history

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   
  • The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history

   
  • Purgatorio

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