Premature examination of his files might ruin his private, undefined Plan. Somewhere in the ultimate curlicues of his mind, there was a Plan. Given time, given enough confidential material, he would succeed in knitting the entire quarrelsome world into a single net of conspiracy in which there were no antagonists, merely millions of men working, unknown to one another, for the same end; and there would be no more war.

— Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh Quotes

The languor of Youth – how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrevocably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth – all save this – come and go with us through life.

— Evelyn Waugh

And how was she deserved all this hate? She has done nothing except to be loved by someone who was not grown up... if you live with a man you come to know the other woman he has loved. I know Lady Marchmain very well. She is a good and simple woman who has been loved in the wrong way.

— Evelyn Waugh

Most English gentlemen at this time believed that they had a particular aptitude for endearing themselves to the lower classes.

— Evelyn Waugh

I aches,” said Mrs. Jackson with simple dignity. “I aches terrible all round the sit-upon. It’s the damp.

— Evelyn Waugh

Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches.

— Evelyn Waugh

Premature examination of his files might ruin his private, undefined Plan. Somewhere in the ultimate curlicues of his mind, there was a Plan. Given time, given enough confidential material, he would succeed in knitting the entire quarrelsome world into a single net of conspiracy in which there were no antagonists, merely millions of men working, unknown to one another, for the same end; and there would be no more war.

— Evelyn Waugh

Lady Marchmain,10 no I am not on her side; but God is, who suffers fools gladly;.

— Evelyn Waugh

Algernon Stitch was standing in the hall; his bowler hat was on his head; his right hand, grasping a crimson, royally emblazoned dispatch case, emerged from the left sleeve of his overcoat; his other hand burrowed petulantly in his breast pocket. An umbrella under his left arm further inconvenienced him. He spoke indistinctly, for he was holding a folded copy of the morning paper between his teeth. “Can’t get it on,” he seemed to say.

— Evelyn Waugh

Outside – and, in one or two places, inside – the rain fell in torrents.

— Evelyn Waugh

Most of my day is spent dealing with pathetic people of confused nationality seeking to escape the horrors of liberation.

— Evelyn Waugh

They’re featuring me as a special service.” “Then why do they want to send me?” “All the papers are sending specials.” “And all the papers have reports from three or four agencies?” “Yes.” “But if we all send the same thing it seems a waste.” “There would soon be a row if we did.” “But isn’t it very confusing if we all send different news?” “It gives them a choice. They all have different policies so of course they have to give different news.

— Evelyn Waugh

We look back already to the time of the persecution as though it were the heroic age, but have you ever thought how awfully few martyrs there were, compared with how many there ought to have been?

— Evelyn Waugh

It’s very banal, isn’t it, Boot?” “I like it very much.” “Do you? I think all Arthur’s work is banal. I read your book Waste of Time.” “Ah.” John did not invite criticism. “I thought it very banal.” “You seem to find everything banal.” “It is a new word whose correct use I have only lately learned,” said Josephine with dignity. “I find it applies to nearly everything; Virgil and Miss Brittling and my gymnasium.

— Evelyn Waugh

The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms. Whatever the outcome there was a place for him in that battle.” This was the belief of Guy Crouchback in 1939 when he heard the news of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty. What follows is the story of his attempt to find his “place in that battle.

— Evelyn Waugh

Summer passed; delirious crowds cheered Neville Chamberlain’s return from Munich;.

— Evelyn Waugh

Wars don’t start nowadays because people want them. We long for peace, and fill our newspapers with conferences about disarmament and arbitration, but there is a radical instability in our whole world order, and soon we shall all be walking into the jaws of destruction again, protesting our pacific intentions.

— Evelyn Waugh

I’m bound to say your Cardinal Hinsley did a wonderful job of work on the wireless. You could see he was an Englishman first and a Christian second; that is more than you can say of one or two of our bishops.

— Evelyn Waugh

The temptation for Guy, which he resisted as best he could, was to brood on his own bereavement and deplore the countless occasions of his life when he had failed his father. That was not what he was here for. There would be ample time in the years to come for these selfish considerations.

— Evelyn Waugh

Here the girls danced together in the winter evenings to the music of the wireless and tender possessive friendships were contracted and repudiated;.

— Evelyn Waugh

D’you know, Bridey, if I ever felt for a moment like becoming a Catholic, I should only have to talk to you for five minutes to be cured. You manage to reduce what seem quite sensible propositions to stark nonsense.” “It’s odd you should say that. I’ve heard it before from other people. It’s one of the many reasons why I don’t think I should make a good priest.

— Evelyn Waugh
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