Evelyn Waugh

“Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.”

“Change is the only evidence of life.”

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

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

“Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.”

“After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person.”

“The 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.”

“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. ... Or it may be a private bargain betwe...”

“No 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 a...”

“Then 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 t...”

“Success in this world depends on knowing exactly how little effort each job is worth...distribution of energy...”

“Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.”

“The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.”

“Other nations use 'force'; we Britons alone use 'Might'.”

“News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead.”

“There is a species of person called a 'Modern Churchman' who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief.”

“I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.”

“We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.”

“All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.”

“You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.”