Evelyn Quotes & Sayings

No one is ever holy without suffering. — Evelyn Waugh

In view of her present ease, Anais Nin knows that the description of what she was like as a child will be difficult to accept and so will occasion laughter [...] Nin also knows, however, how much we need to believe that such a triumph over handicaps is possible and how much our admiration for an accomplished person can be discouraging rather than encouraging to our own aspirations if we are not reminded of the struggles that preceded that success. Finally, she also knows that the tendency to cling to the idea that the person who exhibits remarkable qualities was invariably born with exceptional talents and advantages may be an inverted way of rationalizing one's own passivity and mediocrity. — Evelyn Hinz

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

I am suing Lord Beaverbrook for libel and hope for some lovely tax-free money in damages. He has very conveniently told some lies about me. — Evelyn Waugh

I was single-minded and I had tunnel vision. Now it's time for a change. — Evelyn Ashford

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 looked at the door, at war with myself. On the one hand, I hated going anything Reth wanted me to. On the other hand, there was a mop with my name on it inside.
"Fine, but if you try anything-"
"Really, Evelyn,how I've missed your charming company."
Keeping a wary eye on the faerie, I followed hi, through the alley. We made our way down the lamp-lined street, his step so light it bordered on dancing. I felt like a graceless clod next to him. Then there was the aspect of his ethereal, near-angelic beauty compared to my..well, for the sake of my self-esteem, it was probably best not to compete. — Kiersten White

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

It is typical of Oxford, I said, to start the new year in autumn. — Evelyn Waugh

I keep up with everything in terms of health, fitness, nutrition, skin care, hair, nails. Really, everything. I'm an avid reader of every women's health newsletter from every hospital in the country. — Evelyn Lauder

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

When I'm running fast, I don't feel anything, it's effortless, it's like my feet don't even touch the ground, it's like I'm flying. — Evelyn Ashford

Evelyn tried to control people by controlling weapons, but Jeanine was more ambitious - she knew that when you control information, or manipulate it, you don't need force to keep people under your thumb. They stay there willingly. That is what the Bureau - and the entire government, probably - is doing: conditioning people to be happy under its thumb. — Anonymous

Can I call you Fozzie?"
"Can I call you Evelyn?"
"Not if you want me to answer."
"It's safe to say, the same goes for calling me Fozzie. I'm not a Muppet. — Renee Ericson

Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him. — Evelyn Underhill

Never let school get in the way of your education.
Mark Twain — Evelyn Krieger

If an inmate swears at a guard, fights, or hides contraband like cigarettes or candy [Sheriff Arpaio has banned coffee, cigarettes, hot lunches, girlie mags & TV], she's kicked out of the tents and sent to lockdown--a tiny cell 10x12 feet that houses 4 women, instead of the 2 it was built for. There's no tv, no phone, & no a/c. Even though most of these women have drug problems, programs like NA or AA are considered 'privileges' forbidden to those locked down. The only way to get out of lockdown is to volunteer for the chain gang--the first & only female chain gang in the United States (as of Aug 1997). Volunteers sign a paper that says they know & accept the conditions on the chain--cleaning Phoenix streets, painting the center strip of miles of highway, & burying AZ's indigent. The accusation of 'cruel & unusual punishment' is quashed by the argument that the chain gang is purely voluntary. After all, if you prefer, you can spend the whole year in lockdown. — Jane Evelyn Atwood

The determined fixing of our will upon God, and pressing toward him steadily and without deflection; this is the very center and the art of prayer. — Evelyn Underhill

A gardener's work is never at an end; it begins with the year and continues to the next. — John Evelyn

Chestnuts are delicacies for princes and a lusty and masculine food for rusticks, and able to make women well-complexioned. — John Evelyn

We adorn graves with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in the Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties whose roots, being buried in dishonor, rise again in glory. — John Evelyn

The Catholic Church with its foreshortened American history and tangled puritanical roots was as inviolate to my mother and father as it was to the last-ditch aristocrats of Evelyn Waugh. — Maureen Howard

Nobody can live in the past or the future without being something of a nut. — Evelyn Nesbit

Sometimes I think the resurrection of the body, unless much improved in construction, a mistake! — Evelyn Underhill

Comparisons are odious. — 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

Don't give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can't express them. Don't analyze yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak. — Evelyn Waugh

Mulberry Garden, now the only place of refreshment about the town for persons of the best quality to be exceeding cheated at. — John Evelyn

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

The spiritual life of individuals has to be extended both vertically to God
and horizontally to other souls; and the more it grows in both directions, the less merely individual and therefore more truly personal it will become. — Evelyn Underhill

It's awful to think that I shall probably never, as long as I live, see you dancing like that again all by yourself. — Evelyn Waugh

Every minute you are thinking of evil, you might have been thinking of good instead. Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds.
Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again. — Evelyn Underhill

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

razor-thin hips glide across the lobby with determined expressions on their faces. The tapping of their stilettos on the marble floor rings out a harsh staccato rhythm like a machine gun. I've been working here for three — Evelyn Glass

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

As we live longer and healthier for longer, we need to keep ourselves busy ... the diary is pretty full. — Evelyn Glennie

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything. — Evelyn Waugh

Her heart was broken perhaps, but it was a small inexpensive organ of local manufacture. In a wider and grander way she felt things had been simplified. — Evelyn Waugh

There could be no eldest son for her, and younger sons were indelicate things, necessary, but not to be much spoken of. Younger sons had none of the privileges of obscurity; it was their plain duty to remain hidden until some disaster perchance promoted them to their brother's places, and, since this was their function, it was desirable that they should keep themselves wholly suitable for succession. — Evelyn Waugh

What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen? — Evelyn Waugh

You don't have to be peculiar to find God. — Evelyn Underhill

The next four weeks of solitary confinement were among the happiest of Paul's life ... It was so exhilarating, he found, never to have to make any decision on any subject, to be wholly relieved from the smallest consideration of time, meas, or clothes, to have no anxiety ever about what kind of impression he was making; in fact, to be free. — Evelyn Waugh

The first question here, then, is not "What is best for my soul?" nor is it even "What is most useful to humanity?" But-transcending both these limited aims-what function must this life fulfill in the great and secret economy of God? — Evelyn Underhill

We possess nothing certainly except the past — Evelyn Waugh

The London streets are paths of loveliness; the very omnibuses look like colored archangels, their laps filled full of little trustful souls. — Evelyn Underhill

It wasn't until I was 14 and watched the 1976 Olympic games on television that I really started to dream about the big time. I remember seeing Evelyn Ashford in the 100 meters, and she was going to UCLA. — Jackie Joyner-Kersee

His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as punctilious as himself the correspondence ended only with death. — Evelyn Waugh

For the most part, of course, the presence of the great spiritual universe surrounding us is no more noticed by us than the pressure of air on our bodies, or the action of light. Our field of attention is not wide enough for that; our spiritual senses are not sufficiently alert. Most people work so hard at developing their correspondence with the visible world, that their power of correspondence with the invisible is left in a rudimentary state. — Evelyn Underhill

The avalanche was down, the hillside swept bare behind it; the last echoes died on the white slopes; the new mount glittered and lay still in the silent valley. — Evelyn Waugh

I can't bare you when you're not amusing. — Evelyn Waugh

Any one 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, Paul learned, who find prison so soul destroying. — Evelyn Waugh

When you let intution have its way with you, you open up new levels of the world. Such opening-up is the most practical of all activities. — Evelyn Underhill

My go-to author for knowing it all is Evelyn Waugh. 'A Handful of Dust' is as perfect as a book can get. — Laurie Graham

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

I do not think reading the mystics would hurt you myself: you say you must avoid books which deal with 'feelings' - but the mystics don't deal with feelings but with love which is a very different thing. You have too many 'feelings,' but not nearly enough love. — Evelyn Underhill

Mr. Schultz, you're jealous of whispering Glades."
"And why wouldn't I be seeing all that dough going on relations they've hated all their lives, while the pets who've loved them and stood by them , never asked no questions, never complained, rich or poor, sickness or health, get buried anyhow like animals? — Evelyn Waugh

Concerts have to be seen as a real event for which the aim is to try and feed everybody. — Evelyn Glennie

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

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

[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

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

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

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

And as I grew older, I then auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music in London, and they said, well, no, we won't accept you, because we haven't a clue - you know - of the future of a so-called 'deaf' musician. And I just couldn't quite accept that. — Evelyn Glennie

Mr. Kent raised his brows. "What are they asking?"
"For me to heal a little girl."
"My God, the brutes, the monsters," he mocked. — Tarun Shanker

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

Keep your mouth shut around me," he says, his voice low, "or I will do this again, only next time, I'll shove it right through your esophagus."
"That's enough," Evelyn says. Edward drops the fork and releases Peter. Then he walks across the room and sits next to the person who called him "Eddie" a moment before.
"I don't know if you know this," Tobias says, "but Edward is a little unstable."
"I'm getting that," I say.
"That Drew guy, who helped Peter perform that butter-knife maneuver," Tobias says. "Apparently when he got kicked out of Dauntless, he tried to join the same group of factionless Edward was a part of. Notice that you haven't seen Drew anywhere."
"Did Edward kill him?" I say.
"Nearly," Tobias says. "Evidently that's why that other transfer--Myra, I think her name was?--left Edward. Too gentle to bear it. — Veronica Roth

Here's an idea, how about you stop drinking? How about you go to rehab? Or you could just do us all a favor and die. — Evelyn Smith

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

On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur. — Evelyn Underhill

For two years, she and Cassie had been inseparable. And then one night, Cassie had disappeared from her bed. In her place, her abductor had left his calling card, a macabre nursery rhyme. Cassie had never come home. — Elizabeth Heiter

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

A lot of things which come with a high profile will always be criticised one way or another. — Evelyn Glennie

So the Bawdy Bluestocking was the proprietress of her own shop, selling lurid novels to ladies in the front and more esoteric fare in the back, from the looks of the shelves around him. He spied Pope and Crabbe, Shakespeare, of course, and names he did not recognize at all. He wondered how she chose her stock and where it came from. She must spend her days in endless research. The thought was unaccountably lovely to him. — Evelyn Pryce

Your mallet or your stick goes through the instrument, the sound goes out and then wherever the sound goes nobody knows, you know. — Evelyn Glennie

The human body and mind are tremendous forces that are continually amazing scientists and society. Therefore, we have no choice but to keep an open mind as to what the human being can achieve. — Evelyn Glennie

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

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

Our blessed Savior chose the Garden for his Oratory, and dying, for the place of his Sepulchre; and we do avouch for many weighty causes, that there are none more fit to bury our dead in than in our Gardens and Groves, where our Beds may be decked with verdant and fragrant flowers, Trees and Perennial Plants, the most natural and instructive Hieroglyphics of our expected Resurrection and Immortality. — John Evelyn

Sweetheart the doctor gave you the okay, and your friends will be there. It's okay to live your life. You can't be afraid at every turn. — Evelyn Smith

I think that sex should be done, but unlike justice, not seen to be done! — Evelyn Laye

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

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

Puppies are cute. I'm fierce!"
"Yeah!" Evelyn snorted. "Romas says you're as fierce as a kitten."
"A kitten?" Kiera's tone grew more hurt. "I'm not afraid of him, just because he's twelve feet tall and can bench press me with his toes. It's not nice of him to say that — Lizzy Ford

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

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

She was a woman made up of details, and he saw them, every one. — Evelyn Rogers

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

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

Once you're in a particular country, and you're surrounded by musicians who are so adept at traditional music, you suddenly realize how much there is to explore and digest and learn and experience. — Evelyn Glennie

It is immediately apparent, however, that this sense-world, this seemingly real external universe - though it may be useful and valid in other respects - cannot be the external world, but only the Self's projected picture of it ... The evidence of the senses, then, cannot be accepted as evidence of the nature of ultimate reality; useful servants, they are dangerous guides. — Evelyn Underhill

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

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

It's the beginning of the Allegiant rebellion I've been expecting since I first heard the group had formed. Even though it has seemed inevitable to me since I saw how Evelyn chose to rule, I feel sick. It seems like the rebellions never stop, in the city, in the compound, anywhere. There are just breaths between them, and foolishly, we call those breaths "peace." I — Veronica Roth

[On Washington, D.C.:] There was no other city in the world where rumor fed upon itself so virulently. Whispers wiped out careers just as cholera destroyed its human victims. — Evelyn Anthony

That's always the way when you discover something new; everyone thinks you're crazy. — Evelyn E. Smith

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