Evelyn Waugh Quotes
October 28, 1903 – 10 April 1966
More Evelyn Waugh Quotes
His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as punctilious as himself the correspondence ended only with death.
Evelyn Waugh— As quoted in LIFE magazine (8 April 1946)
Don't hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them.
Evelyn Waugh— The Tablet (9 May 1951)
Of children as of procreation— the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable.
Evelyn Waugh— Letter to Nancy Mitford, May 5, 1954, cited from Mark Amory (ed.) The Letters of Evelyn Waugh (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982) p. 423
— "The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable" is sometimes attributed to Lord Chesterfield (British statesman, diplomat and wit, 1694-1773), but has not been found in his works.
I put the words down and push them a bit.
Evelyn Waugh— As quoted in his obituary in The New York Times (11 April 1966)
Aesthetic value is often the by-product of the artist striving to do something else.
Evelyn Waugh— Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976)
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them -- a diminishing number in my case.
Evelyn Waugh— Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976) p. 786
Please bear in mind throughout that IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY.
Evelyn Waugh— Author's note.
"You see my adjutant made rather a silly mistake. He hadn't had much truck with boots before and the silly fellow thought they were extra rations. My men ate the whole bag of tricks last night."
Evelyn Waugh— Chapter 5 (Black Mischief (1932))
While still a young man, John Courteney Boot had, as his publisher proclaimed, "achieved an assured and enviable position in contemporary letters."
Evelyn Waugh— Opening lines
Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.
Evelyn Waugh— An oft-quoted example of William Boot's style. When first mentioned in the novel it is "splashy" and not "plashy", but this is a remembrance of another journalist; when Boot himself quotes it, he has "plashy".
"The Beast stands for strong mutually antagonistic governments everywhere," he said. "Self-sufficiency at home, self-assertion abroad."
Evelyn Waugh— A quote from Lord Copper.
"Up to a point, Lord Copper."
Evelyn Waugh— Lord Copper, proprietor of the Daily Beast is a man to whom one never says 'No' directly. This is what one says instead.
The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.
Evelyn Waugh— Ch. 1 : Autumn, § 7
So the two of them went to London by the early morning train. 'Let's surprise her,' said Nigel, but Cedric telephoned first, wryly remembering the story of the pedantic adulterer - 'My dear, it is I who am surprised; you are astounded.'
Evelyn Waugh— Ch. 3 : Spring
When I reached C Company lines, which were at the top of the hill, I paused and looked back at the camp, just coming into full view below me through the grey mist of early morning.
Evelyn Waugh— First lines of Prologue.
To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.
Evelyn Waugh— Part 1, Chapter 1
My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time. We possess nothing certainly except the past.
Evelyn Waugh— Part 3, start of chapter 1.
I have lived carefully, sheltered myself from the cold winds, eaten moderately of what was in season, drunk fine claret, slept in my own sheets; I shall live long.
Evelyn Waugh— Part 3, chapter 5, Lord Marchmain's dying soliloquy.
O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin. '...But I saw today there was one thing unforgivable - like things in the school-room, so bad they were unpunishable, that only mummy could deal with - the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I'm not quite bad enough to do; to set up a rival good to God's.'
Evelyn Waugh— Part 3, near end of chapter 5
Quomondo sedet sola civitas. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Evelyn Waugh— Epilogue
Tomorrow and on every anniversary as long as the Happier Hunting Ground existed a postcard would go to Mr. Joyboy: Your little Aimée is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you.
Evelyn Waugh— Chapter 10
It may happen in the next hundred years that the English novelists of the present day will come to be valued as we now value the artists and craftsmen of the late eighteenth century.
Evelyn Waugh— First lines (The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957))
Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.
Evelyn Waugh— First lines (A Little Learning (1964))
Your action, and your action alone, determines your worth.
Evelyn Waugh— Johann Gottlieb Fichte in The Vocation of Man [Die Bestimmung des Menschen] (1800), p. 94 : "You are here, not for idle contemplation of yourself, not for brooding over devout sensations — no, for action you are here; action, and action alone, determines your worth." [Nicht zum müßigen Beschauen und Betrachten deiner selbst, oder zum Brüten über andächtigen Empfindungen, — nein, zum Handeln bist du da; dein Handeln und allein dein Handeln bestimmt deinen Werth.]
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Evelyn Waugh— Simone Weil, in The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees
If Brideshead Revisited is not a great book, it's so like a great book that many of us, at least while reading it, find it hard to tell the difference.
Evelyn Waugh— Clive James, in Glued to the Box (1983), p. 233
Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.
Evelyn Waugh— Evelyn Waugh, A Little Learning (1964)
All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.
Evelyn Waugh— Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies
