There is something incomparably thrilling in first opening a brand new book.

News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read.

How ungenerously in later life we disclaim the virtuous moods of our youth, living in retrospect long, summer days of unreflecting dissipation.

You spend the first term at Oxford meeting interesting and exciting people and the rest of your time there avoiding them

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.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

Its theme-- the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters-- was perhaps presumptuously large, but I make no apology for it.