Best Waugh Quotes & Sayings

No one is ever holy without suffering. — Evelyn Waugh

Its a rather pleasant change when all your life you've had people looking after you, to have someone to look after yourself. Only of course it has to be someone pretty hopeless to need looking after by me. — Evelyn Waugh

You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course. — Evelyn Waugh

Remember that, however patient your study, you will never in adult life learn any language perfectly; the best you can hope for is to be a bore. — Evelyn Waugh

His constant, despairing prayer was to be let alone. By the blue waters and rustling palms of his own mind he was happy and harmless as a Polynesian; only when the big ship dropped anchor beyond the coral reef, and the cutter beached in the lagoon, and, up the slope that had never known the print of a boot, there trod the grim invasion of trader, administrator, missionary, and tourist - only then was it time to disinter the archaic weapons of the tribe and sound the drums in the hills; or, more easily, to turn from the sunlit door and lie alone in the darkness, where the impotent, painted deities paraded the walls in vain, and cough his heart out among the rum bottles. And — Evelyn Waugh

I had been there before; I knew all about it. — Evelyn Waugh

I think there's almost nothing I can't excuse except perhaps worshiping graven images. That seems to be idiotic. — Evelyn Waugh

I prefer all but the very worst travel books, to all but the very best novels. — Evelyn Waugh

We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school. — Evelyn Waugh

No one will write books once they reach heaven, but there is an excellent library, containing all the books written up to date, including all the lost books and the ones that the authors burned when they came back from the last publisher. — Evelyn Waugh

Louis de Bernires is in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh ... he has only to look into his world, one senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and taste. — A.S. Byatt

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

That is not the last word; it is not even an apt word; it is a dead word from ten years back. — Evelyn Waugh

In affirming God to be supreme in all things, the classical theist describes him in a number of ways. He is perfect, loving, good, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, timeless, transcendent, personal, immutable and immanent. But how can this be? Is it really possible to be both eternal and timeless? Immutable and immanent? Personal and at the same time transcendent? — Alexander Waugh

Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all. — 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 Waugh

The way ran zigzag through a forest of pine which the bitter wind, still that morning, had turned to ice; every bough was adorned with lines of stalactite which shivered and glittered in the morning sun; every needle had a brilliant, vitreous case and when she flicked her whip at a wayside shrub she brought down a tinkling shower of ice-leaves, each the veined impression of its crisp, green counterpart. — Evelyn Waugh

There is proverbially a mystery among most men of new wealth, how they made their first ten thousand; it is the qualities they showed then, before they became bullies, when every man was someone to be placated, when only hope sustained them and they could count on nothing from the world but what could be charmed from it, that make them, if they survive their triumph, successful with women. — Evelyn Waugh

She was daily surprised by the things he knew and the things he did not know; both, at the time, added to his attraction. — Evelyn Waugh

I loved buildings that had grown silently with the centuries, catching the best of each generation while time curbed the artist's pride and the philistine's vulgarity and repaired the clumsiness of the dull workman. — Evelyn Waugh

The view implicit in my education was that the basic narrative of Christianity had long been exposed as a myth, and that opinion was now divided as to whether its ethical teaching was of present value, a division in which the main weight went against it; religion was a hobby which some people professed and others did not; at the best it was slightly ornamental, at the worst it was the province of 'complexes' and 'inhibitions'
catchwords of the decade
and of the intolerance, hypocrisy, and sheer stupidity attributed to it for centuries. — Evelyn Waugh

Generally speaking, the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shits into law — Auberon Waugh

Don't you think," said Father Rothschild gently, "that perhaps it is all in some way historical? I don't think people ever want to lose their faith either in religion or anything else. I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence. I think all these divorces show that. People aren't content just to muddle along nowadays ... And this word "bogus" they all use ... They won't make the best of a bad job nowadays. My private schoolmaster used to say, "If a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well." My Church has taught that in different words for several centuries. But these young people have got hold of another end of the stick, and for all we know it may be the right one. They say, "If a thing's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all." It makes everything very difficult for them. — Evelyn Waugh

He's very competitive and knows what he wants. He has developed toughness in character and that is what is needed for Indian cricket. Ganguly has proved to be one of the best captains. He has now acquired great leadership qualities. — Steve Waugh

The best I can tell you in that way is that I'm much more at ease with fellow-Catholics than I am with heathens or Protestants. One has so many basic assumptions in common that there's so much that doesn't need saying, and when you're talking to even the most amusing and intelligent heathen you suddenly find that something you've said has no meaning at all to them. — Evelyn Waugh

As a rule there is one thing you can always count on in our job - popularity. There are plenty of disadvantages I grant you, but you are liked and respected. Ring people up any hour of the day or night, butt into their houses uninvited make them answer a string of damn fool questions when they want to do something else - they like it. Always a smile and the best of everything for the gentlemen of the Press. — Evelyn Waugh

Free as air; that's what they say- "free as air". Now they bring me my air in an iron barrel. — Evelyn Waugh

[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. — Rebecca West

For me, it [moviemaking] is about social relevance. I want to make a movie that has some type of relevance where as the audience can't help but relate it in some way, and to continue that conversation outside the theater. I want people saying "this happened to my father" or "this happened to me." That's what I want. — Ric Roman Waugh

Many rebel soldiers that night would sleep on their muskets and question the value of a victory that had cost them Stonewall Jackson. — John C. Waugh

Port is not for the very young, the vain and the active. It is the comfort of age and the companion of the scholar and the philosopher — Evelyn Waugh

I've just been to Greece to see the buildings there,' said Professor Silenus. 'Did you like them?' 'They are unspeakably ugly. But there were some nice goats. — Evelyn Waugh

You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being. — Evelyn Waugh

O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin, — Evelyn Waugh

I [had] added another small piece to the pages of the atlas that were real to me. — Evelyn Waugh

Pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom. — Evelyn Waugh

The key to handling pressure is to enjoy it when you're confronted with it rather than worry about it too much. — Steve Waugh

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

Then I knew that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom. — Evelyn Waugh

I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence. — Evelyn Waugh

I have no technical psychological interest; it is drama, speech,and events that interest me. — Evelyn Waugh

Your colleague, Captain Grimes, has been convicted before me on evidence that leaves no possibility of his innocence - of a crime (I might almost call it a course of action) which I can neither understand nor excuse. I dare say I need not particularise. — Evelyn Waugh

Rather to my surprise, I found myself genuinely indignant at the suggestion that murder was to be reintroduced as a means of political advancement for the first time since the Tudors, and even more indignant that the legal and political establishments in all their forms - which included, at that stage, the police - were going to cover up the whole episode. In the event, it turned out that my anxieties were unfounded, as Thorpe was totally innocent of all charges brought against him. — Auberon Waugh

It (modernization) is just another jungle closing in. — Evelyn Waugh

Beware 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 Waugh

There is an old story about the boy at Eton who committed suicide. The other boys in his house were gathered together and asked if any of them could suggest a reason for the tragedy. After a long silence a small boy in the front put up his hand: 'Could it have been the food, sir? — Auberon Waugh

In their quest for power and self-importance, to compensate for whatever feelings of social inadequacy or sexual insecurity, they (Politicians)are prepared to perpetrate something which is hard to distinguish from mass murder if they think they can get away with it ... — Auberon Waugh

Where can we hide in fair weather, we orphans of the storm? — Evelyn Waugh