The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.
![The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an](http://cdn.quoteddaily.com/images/w-somerset-maugham/the-americans-who-are-the-most-efficient-people-on-the-earth-have-carried-phrase-making-to-such-a-height-of.jpg)