Evelyn Waugh: How do you get your main pleasure in life, Sir William? Sir William Beveridge: I get mine trying to leave the world a better place than I found it. Waugh: I get mine spreading alarm and despondency and I get more satisfaction than you do.

'I will not stand for being called a woman in my own house' she said.

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

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.

If one's object is ascetic, it is far better to stay in London or Paris or New York; there is practically no extreme of heat or cold, physical risk, loneliness, hunger or thirst that cannot, with a little ingenuity, be conveniently achieved in the centres of civilization.

Yes, cider and tinned salmon are the staple diet of the agricultural classes.

There is practically no sense that is not violated every time we return from the country or the sea to Paris or London or New York.