Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity. Evelyn Waugh More Quotes by Evelyn Waugh More Quotes From Evelyn Waugh I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember. Evelyn Waugh uglymiserableremember Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. Evelyn Waugh bores-youblessingwork You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being. Evelyn Waugh catholicwould-beideas Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth. Evelyn Waugh determineaction Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you. Evelyn Waugh doeislandsart One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die. Evelyn Waugh vocabularynamesneeds Novel-writing is a highly skilled and laborious trade. One does not just sit behind a screen jotting down other people's conversation. One has for one's raw material every single thing one has ever seen or heard or felt, and one has to go over that vast, smoldering rubbish-heap of experience, half stifled by fumes and dust, scraping and delving until one finds a few discarded valuables. Then one has to assemble these tarnished and dented fragments, polish them, set them in order, and try to make a coherent and significant arrangement of them. Evelyn Waugh dustwritingorder Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all. Evelyn Waugh sidespastrooms I put the words down and push them a bit. Evelyn Waugh bitsdown-andliterature Beer commercials are so patriotic: Made the American Way. What does that have to do with America? Is that what America stands for? Feeling sluggish and urinating frequently? Evelyn Waugh patrioticbeeramerica ... To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom. Evelyn Waugh brideshead-revisitedand-loveroots Perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us. Evelyn Waugh disappointmentspringlove Properly understood, style is not a seductive decoration added to a functional structure; it is of the essence of a work of art. The necessary elements of style are lucidity, elegance, and individuality; these three qualities combine to form a preservative which ensures the nearest approximation to permanence in the fugitive art of letters. Evelyn Waugh seductiveessenceart Beware of writing to me. I always answer ... My father spent the last 20 years of his life writing letters. If someone thanked him for a wedding present, he thanked them for thanking him and there was no end to the exchange but death. Evelyn Waugh writinginspirationalfather 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. Evelyn Waugh adultspatientstudy If a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well. Evelyn Waugh wellshumorfunny He wasn't a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending to be whole. Evelyn Waugh bottlesagemen After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person. Evelyn Waugh being-in-lovedoemean To see Stephen Spender fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sevres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee. Evelyn Waugh vasesbookhands I did not know it was possible to be so miserable and live but I am told that this is a common experience. Evelyn Waugh common-experiencemiserablecommon
