[Evelyn Waugh] made drunkenness cute and chic, and then took to religion, simply to have the most expensive carpet of all to be sick on.

A great many quite good plays could be performed with rhythmic howls in the place of dialogue and lose almost nothing by the change.

The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you.

The childhood of the individual and the race is full of fears, and panic-stricken attempts to avert what is feared by placating the gods with painful sacrifices.

... it matters not what natural endowment a race may have if it prostitutes itself to the service of death.

Yes,” said Mamma, “this is the worst of life, that love does not give us common sense but is a sure way of losing it. We love people, and we say that we are going to do more for them than friendship, but it makes such fools of us that we do far less, indeed sometimes what we do could be mistaken for the work of hatred.

Human beings are mercifully so constituted as to be able to conceal from themselves what they intend to do until they are well into the doing of it.