Quotes from Evelyn Waugh

I remember no syllable of them now, but the other, more ancient lore which I acquired that term will be with me in one shape or another to my last hour. "I like this bad set and I like getting drunk at luncheon"; that was enough then. Is more needed now?

How could I have known? There seemed time for everything in those days; the world was open to be explored at leisure.

We, Seth, Emperor of Azania, Chief of the Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas, Bachelor of the Arts of Oxford University, being in this the twenty-fourth year of our life, summoned by the wisdom of Almighty God and the unanimous voice of our people to the throne of our ancestors, do hereby proclaim...

At a banquet given in his honour Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock once modestly attributed his success in life to the habit of getting up earlier than the other fellow. But this was partly metaphorical, partly false and in case wholly relative for journalists are as a rule late risers.

My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one gray morning of war-time.

I am reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally defective.

Too late, old boy, too late. The saddest words in the English language.

Now we shall both be alone, and I shall have no way of making you understand.' 'I don't want to make it easier for you,' I said; 'I hope your heart may break; but I do understand.' The avalanche was down, the hillside swept bare behind it; the last echoes died on the white slopes; the new mound glittered and lay still in the silent valley.

I never can understand how two men can write a book together. To me, that's like three people getting together to have a baby.

I've usually found every Catholic family has one lapsed member, and it's often the nicest.

It was a morning of ethereal splendor—such a morning as Noah knew as he gazed from his pitchy bulwarks over limitless, sunlit waters while the dove circled and mounted and became lost in the shining heavens; such a morning as only the angels saw on the first day of that rash cosmic experiment that had resulted, at the moment, in landing Corker and Pigge here in the mud, stiff and unshaven and disconsolate.

trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what's been taught and what's been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into the depths of confusion you didn't know existed.

Above all the babble of her age and ours, she makes one blunt assertion. And there alone lies Hope.

Mr. Schultz, you're jealous of whispering Glades. And why wouldn't I be seeing all that dough going on relations they've hated all their lives, while the pets who've loved them and stood by them , never asked no questions, never complained, rich or poor, sickness or health, get buried anyhow like animals?

there is always more to be learned and noticed, so many characters, so many changes of scene, so many words...

It was not her way to make a conspicuous entry into anyone's life, but towards the end of that week Sebastian said rather sourly: "You and mummy seem very thick," and I realized that in fact I was being drawn into intimacy by swift, imperceptible stages, for she was impatient of any human relationship that fell short of it.

It was as though Banquo had turned host.

You'll find you spend half your second year shaking off the undesirable friends you made in your first...

Ought we to be drunk every night?" Sebastian asked one morning. "Yes, I think so." "I think so too.

But as I drove away and turned back in the car to take what promised to be my last view of the house, I felt that I was leaving a part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried material treasures without which they cannot pay their way to the netherworld.

There was a regulation that if they remained at large in enemy territory for some weeks longer, they could be repatriated to the United States. It was for this that they had made a hazardous parachute jump and destroyed an expensive, very slightly damaged aeroplane.

It's not to be expected that an ox and an ass should worship at the crib. Animals are always doing the oddest things in the lives of the saints. It's all part of the poetry, the Alice-In-Wonderland side of religion.

It was a small tortoise with Julia's initials set in diamonds in the living shell, and this slightly obscene object, now slipping impotently on the polished boards, now striding across the card-table, now lumbering over a rug, now withdrawn at a touch, now stretching its neck and swaying its withered, antediluvian head, became a memorable part of the evening, one of those needlehooks of experience which catch the attention when larger matters are at stake.

I used to know Brian Howard well -- a dazzling young man to my innocent eyes. In later life he became very dangerous -- constantly attacking people with his fists in public places -- so I kept clear of him. He was consumptive but the immediate cause of his death was a broken heart.