Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waughwas an English writer of novels, biographies and travel books. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer of books. His most famous works include the early satires Decline and Falland A Handful of Dust, the novel Brideshead Revisitedand the Second World War trilogy Sword of Honour. Waugh is recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the 20th century...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth28 October 1903
wisdom past brideshead-revisited
We possess nothing certainly except the past
amusing i-can
I can't bare you when you're not amusing.
people opinion argument
The great charm in argument is really finding one's own opinions, not other people's.
children sensual feckless
My children weary me. I can only see them as defective adults: feckless, destructive, frivolous, sensual, humorless.
country new-york cities
There 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.
adults patient language
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.
sky horizon shells
The 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.
teacher retirement deceit
We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.
retirement giving want
The splendid thing about education is that everyone wants it. Like influenza, you can give it away without losing any of it yourself.
death writing people
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.
women saint natural
Saints are simply men and women who have fulfilled their natural obligation which is to approach God.
years lasts last-words
that is not the last word; it is not even an apt word; it is a dead word from ten years back.
home self sufficiency
Self-sufficiency at home, self-assertion abroad.
ignorant trouble modern
The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant they are.