The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.
Evelyn WaughI have no technical psychological interest; it is drama, speech,and events that interest me.
Evelyn WaughNever get mixed up in a Welsh wrangle. It doesn't end in blows like an Irish one, but goes on forever.
Evelyn WaughI've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. ... Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.
Evelyn WaughAn artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.
Evelyn WaughIt is no longer possible to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis upon which it is based.
Evelyn WaughAnyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums who find prison so soul-destroying.
Evelyn WaughI did not know it was possible to be so miserable and live but I am told that this is a common experience.
Evelyn WaughMy father and I were never intimate in the sense of my coming to him with confidences or seeking advice. Our relationship was rather that of host and guest. Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.
Evelyn WaughThere 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.
Evelyn WaughI think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.
Evelyn Waugh"What war?" said the Prime Minister sharply. "No one has said anything to me about a war. I really think I should have been told. I'll be damned," he said defiantly, "if they shall have a war without consulting me. What's a cabinet for, if there's not more mutual confidence than that? What do they want a war for anyway?"
Evelyn Waugh... the understatement, the self-ridicule, the delight in the foreignness of foreigners, the complete denial of any attempt to enlist the sympathies of his readers in the hardships he has capriciously invited.
Evelyn WaughBeware of writing to me. I always answer ... My father spent the last 20 years of his life writing letters. If someone thanked him for a wedding present, he thanked them for thanking him and there was no end to the exchange but death.
Evelyn Waughthat is not the last word; it is not even an apt word; it is a dead word from ten years back.
Evelyn WaughThat was the change in her from ten years ago; that, indeed, was her reward, this haunting, magical sadness which spoke straight to the heart and struck silence; it was the completion of her beauty.
Evelyn WaughI regard writing not as an investigation of character but as an exercise in the use of language, and with this I am obsessed.
Evelyn WaughOnce you start changing a name, you see, there's no reason ever to stop. One always hears one that sounds better.
Evelyn WaughThe sky over London was glorious, ochre and madder, as though a dozen tropic suns were simultaneously setting round the horizon . . . Everywhere the shells sparkled like Christmas baubles.
Evelyn WaughProperly understood, style is not a seductive decoration added to a functional structure; it is of the essence of a work of art. The necessary elements of style are lucidity, elegance, and individuality; these three qualities combine to form a preservative which ensures the nearest approximation to permanence in the fugitive art of letters.
Evelyn WaughCharm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you.
Evelyn WaughEvelyn 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.
Evelyn WaughThe only thing that it is advisable to know in any language is the numerals; and even there, you can do a lot with the fingers.
Evelyn WaughIf, for instance, they have heard something from the postman, they attribute it to a semi-official statement; if they have fallen into conversation with a stranger at a bar, they can conscientiously describe him as a source that has hitherto proved unimpeachable. It is only when the journalist is reporting a whim of his own, and one to which he attaches minor importance, that he defines it as the opinion of well-informed circles.
Evelyn WaughThe Roman Catholic Church has the unique power of keeping remote control over human souls which have once been part of her. G.K. Chesterton has compared this to the fisherman's line, which allows the fish the illusion of free play in the water and yet has him by the hook; in his own time the fisherman by a 'twitch upon the thread' draws the fish to land.
Evelyn WaughThat's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.
Evelyn WaughBeavers bred in captivity, inhabiting a concrete pool, will, if given the timber, fatuously go through all the motions of damming an ancestral stream.
Evelyn WaughShe had heard someone say something about an Independent Labour Party, and was furious that she had not been asked.
Evelyn WaughConversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them.
Evelyn WaughIf it could only be like this always - always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper.
Evelyn Waugh