01UndatedAfter all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
02UndatedThe worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without Him.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
03UndatedI've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. ... Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
04UndatedNo one could really hate a saint, could they? They can't really hate God either. When they want to Hate Him and His saints they have to find something like themselves and pretends it's God and hate that.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
05UndatedThen 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 / quote ↗
06UndatedSuccess in this world depends on knowing exactly how little effort each job is worth...distribution of energy...Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
07UndatedAs my intimacy with his family grew, I became part of the world which he sought to escape; I became one of the bonds which held him.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
08UndatedRex, in his early forties, had grown heavy and ruddy; he had lost his Canadian accent and acquired instead the hoarse, loud tone that was common to all his friends, as though their voices were perpetually strained to make themselves heard above a crowd, as though, with youth forsaking them, there was no time to wait the opportunity to speak, no time to listen, no time to reply; time for a laugh — a throaty mirthless laugh, the base currency of goodwill.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
09UndatedI am sorry to disturb you,' said James politely, 'but these people wished to shoot us.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
10UndatedMiss Runcible wore trousers and Miles touched up his eye-lashes in the dining-room of the hotel where they stopped for luncheon. So they were asked to leave.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
11UndatedEvery Englishman abroad, until it is proved to the contrary, likes to consider himself a traveller and not a tourist.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
12UndatedOh, why did nobody warn me?" cried Grimes in agony. "I should have been told. They should have told me in so many words. They should have warned me about Flossie, not about the fires of hell. I've risked them, and I don't mind risking them again, but they should have told me about marriage. They should have told me that at the end of that gay journey and flower-strewn path were the hideous lights of home and the voices of children.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
13UndatedI know I am awful. But how much more awful I should be without the Faith.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
14UndatedOne of the problems of the vacation is money, father.”“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about a thing like that at your age.”“You see, I’ve run rather short.”“Yes?” said my father without any sound of interest.“In fact I don’t quite know how I’m going to get through the next two months.”“Well, I’m the worst person to come to for advice. I’ve never been ‘short’ as you so painfully call it. And yet what else could you say? Hard up? Penurious? Distressed? Embarrassed? Stony-broke?” (Snuffle.) “On the rocks? In Queer Street? Let us say you are in Queer Street and leave it at that. Your grandfather once said to me, ‘Live within your means, but if you do get into difficulties, come to me. Don’t go to the Jews.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
16UndatedAll this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
17UndatedMy unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
18UndatedThere is nothing to be gained by multiplying social distinctions indefinitely.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
19UndatedI'll pray for you.""That's very kind of you.""I can't spare you a whole rosary, you know. Just a decade. I've got such a long list of people. I take them in order and they get a decade about once a week.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
20UndatedI knew it all, the whole drab compass of marital disillusion; we had been through it together, the Army and I, from the first importunate courtship until now, when nothing remained to us except the chill bonds of law and duty and custom. I had played every scene in the domestic tragedy, had found the early tiffs become more frequent, the tears less affecting, the reconciliations less sweet, till they engendered a mood of aloofness and cool criticism, and the growing conviction that it was not myself but the loved one who was at fault. I caught the false notes in her voice and learned to listen for them apprehensively; I recognized the blank, resentful stare of incomprehension in her eyes, and the selfish, hard set of the corners of her mouth. I learned her, as one must learn a woman one has kept house with, day in, day out, for three and a half years; I learned her slatternly ways, the routine and mechanism of her charm, her jealousy and self-seeking, and her nervous trick with the fingers when she was lying. She was stripped of all enchantment now and I knew her for an uncongenial stranger to whom I had bound myself indissolubly in a moment of folly.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
21UndatedI knew it all, the whole drab compass of marital disillusion; we had been through it together, the Army and I, from the first importunate courtship until now, when nothing remained to us except the chill bonds of law and duty and custom. I had played every scene in the domestic tragedy, had found the early tiffs become more frequent, the tears less affecting, the reconciliations less sweet, tell they engendered a mood of aloofness and cool criticism, and the growing conviction that it was not myself but the loved one who was at fault. I caught the false notes in her voice and learned to listen for them apprehensively; I recognized the blank, resentful stare of incomprehension in her eyes, and the selfish, hard set of the corners of her mouth. I learned her, as one must learn a woman one has kept house with, day in, day out, for three and a half years; I learned her slatternly ways, the routine and mechanism of her charm, her jealousy and self-seeking, and her nervous trick with the fingers when she was lying. She was stripped of all enchantment now and I knew her for an uncongenial stranger to whom I had bound myself indissolubly in a moment of folly.Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
22UndatedA whole Gothic world had come to grief...there was now no armour glittering through the forest glades, no embroidered feet on the green sward; the cream and dappled unicorns had fled...Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗
23UndatedAunt Fanny tells me you made great friends with Mr. Mottram. I'm sure he can't be very nice.''I don't think he is,' said Julia. 'I don't know that I like nice peopleEvelyn Waugh / quote ↗
24UndatedYou'll find you spend half your second year shaking off the undesirable friends you made in your first...Evelyn Waugh / quote ↗