The collection / 77 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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77 results · Page 3 of 4Play this collection ▷

01c. 1934 AD

We, Seth, Emperor of Azania, Chief of the Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas, Bachelor of the Arts of Oxford University, being in this the twenty-fourth year of our life, summoned by the wisdom of Almighty God and the unanimous voice of our people to the throne of our ancestors, do hereby proclaim...

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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02c. 1934 AD

It [being very rich] used to worry me, and I thought it wrong to have so many beautiful things when others had nothing. Now I realize that it is possible for the rich to sin by coveting the privileges of the poor. The poor have always been the favourites of God and his saints, but I believe that is is one of the special achievements of Grace to sanctify the whole of life, riches included.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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03c. 1934 AD

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 / quote

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04c. 1934 AD

Instruction would be wasted on me. Just to give me the form and I'll sign on the dotted line.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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05c. 1934 AD

I’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.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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06c. 1934 AD

My father greeted me with his usual air of mild regret.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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07c. 1934 AD

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 / quote

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08c. 1934 AD

Sebastian is in love with his own childhood. That will make him very unhappy.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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09c. 1934 AD

I am reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally defective.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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10c. 1934 AD

It was not her way to make a conspicuous entry into anyone’s life, but towards the end of that week Sebastian said rather sourly: “You and mummy seem very thick,” and I realized that in fact I was being drawn into intimacy by swift, imperceptible stages, for she was impatient of any human relationship that fell short of it.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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11c. 1934 AD

It (modernization) is just another jungle closing in.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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12c. 1934 AD

I suppose it's something to do with her black-brained religion not to take care of the body.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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13c. 1934 AD

Then they began saying, "Get hold of him. Put him in Mercury." Now as you know I have two sculptures by Brancusi and several pretty things and I did not want them to start getting rough, so I said, pacifically, "Dear sweet clodhoppers, if you knew anything of sexual psychology you would know that nothing could give me keener pleasure than to be manhandled by you meaty boys. It would be an ecstasy of the very naughtiest kind. So if any of you wishes to be my partner in joy come and seize me. If, on the other hand, you simply wish to satisfy some obscure and less easily classified libido and see me bathe, come with me quietly, dear louts, to the fountain.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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14c. 1934 AD

I used to know Brian Howard well -- a dazzling young man to my innocent eyes. In later life he became very dangerous -- constantly attacking people with his fists in public places -- so I kept clear of him. He was consumptive but the immediate cause of his death was a broken heart.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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15c. 1934 AD

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 / quote

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16c. 1934 AD

Two wives despaired of him,’ he said. ‘When he got engaged to Sylvia, she made it a condition that he should take the cure at Zurich. And it worked. He came back in three months a different man. And he hasn't touched a drop since, even though Sylvia walked out on him.’ ‘Why did she do that?’Well, poor Charlie got rather a bore when he stopped drinking. But that’s not really the point of the story.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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17c. 1934 AD

...for in that city [New York] there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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18c. 1934 AD

Ah well, to the journalist every country is rich.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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19c. 1934 AD

At a banquet given in his honour Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock once modestly attributed his success in life to the habit of "getting up earlier than the other fellow." But this was partly metaphorical, partly false and in case wholly relative for journalists are as a rule late risers.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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20c. 1934 AD

As a rule there is one thing you can always count on in our job — popularity. There are plenty of disadvantages I grant you, but you are liked and respected. Ring people up any hour of the day or night, butt into their houses uninvited make them answer a string of damn fool questions when they want to do something else — they like it. Always a smile and the best of everything for the gentlemen of the Press.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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21c. 1934 AD

...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 / quote

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22c. 1934 AD

Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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23c. 1934 AD

Change is the only evidence of life.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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24c. 1934 AD

We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us but for ours to amuse them.

Evelyn Waugh / quote

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