Quotes from Evelyn Waugh

Cordelia: I hope I've got a vocation. Charles: I don't know what that means. Cordelia: It means you can be a nun. If you haven't a vocation it's no good however much you want to be; and if you have a vocation, you can't get away from it, however much you hate it.

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

I said to the doctor, who was with us daily. 'He's got a wonderful will to live, hasn't he?' 'Would you put it like that? I should say a great fear of death.' 'Is there a difference?' 'Oh dear, yes. He doesn't derive any strength from his fear, you know. It's wearing him out.

The languor of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost!

I have left behind illusion,' I said to myself. 'Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions - with the aid of my five senses.' I have since learned that there is no such world, but then, as the car turned out of sight of the house, I thought it took no finding, but lay all about me at the end of the avenue.

perhaps all our lovers are merely hints and symbols; vagabond languages scrawled on gate-posts and paving stones along the weary road that others have trampled before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond each other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.

He lit his cigar and sat back at peace with the world; I, too, was at peace in another world than his. We both were happy. He talked of Julia and I heard his voice, unintelligible at a great distance, like a dog's barking miles away on a still night.

So through a world of piety I made my way to Sebastian.

Free as air; that's what they say- free as air. Now they bring me my air in an iron barrel.

Wine is a bride who brings a great dowry to the man who woos her persistently and gracefully.

It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up

There will be a prize of half a crown for the longest essay, irrespective of any possible merit.

Julia used to say, 'Poor Sebastian. It's something chemical in him.' That was the cant phrase of the time, derived from heaven knows what misconception of popular science. 'There's something chemical between them' was used to explain the overmastering hate or love of any two people. It was the old concept of determinism in a new form. I do not believe there was anything chemical in my friend.

I'll pray for you. That's very kind of you. I can't spare you a whole rosary, you know. Just a decade. I've got such a long list of people. I take them in order and they get a decade about once a week.

Once you start changing a name, you see, there's no reason ever to stop. One always hears one that sounds better.

No one will write books once they reach heaven, but there is an excellent library, containing all the books written up to date, including all the lost books and the ones that the authors burned when they came back from the last publisher.

It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.

Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.'--William Boot

I haven't been to sleep for over a year. That's why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn't sleep.

But you can't believe things because they're a lovely idea. But I do. That's how I believe.

Comparisons are odious.

Beware the Anglo-Catholics. They're all sodomites with unpleasant accents. --Cousin Jasper

What is it about being on a boat that makes everyone behave like a film star? --Julia Flyte

Sometimes," said Julia, "I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.