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
education long enough
I have been in the scholastic profession long enough to know that nobody enters it unless he has some very good reason that he is anxious to conceal.
dying world vices
In the dying world I come from, quotation is a national vice.
dust two smell
Of the many smells of Athens two seem to me the most characteristic - that of garlic, bold and deadly like acetylene gas. and that of dust, soft and warm and caressing like tweed.
travel real pieces
I [had] added another small piece to the pages of the atlas that were real to me.
writing careers healthy
Most writers in the course of their careers become thick-skinned and learn to accept vituperation, which in any other profession would be unimaginably offensive, as a healthy counterpoise to unintelligent praise.
writing curiosity age
Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.
sleep years needs
I haven't been to sleep for over a year. That's why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn't sleep.
writing departure metaphor
Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity.
country literature censorship
If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.
dream writing thinking
One can write, think and pray exclusively of others; dreams are all egocentric.
suffering holy brideshead-revisited
No one is ever holy without suffering.
heart broken way
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.
here-i-am ruins dignity
Here I am,' I thought, 'back from the jungle, back from the ruins. Here, where wealth is no longer gorgeous and power has no dignity.
summer laughter flower
Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman's day; her autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days - such as that day - when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamour.