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They are a very decent generous lot of people out here and they don’t expect you to listen. It’s the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.

Evelyn Waugh

I think there’s almost nothing I can’t excuse except perhaps worshiping graven images. That seems to be idiotic.
EVELYN WAUGH

Excuse Image Myself Stupidity Thinking Worship
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

Adult Best Boredom Education Hope Language Life Patience Perfection Remember Study Yourself
The only thing that it is advisable to know in any language is the numerals; and even there, you can do a lot with the fingers.
EVELYN WAUGH

Advice Fingers Language Yourself
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them…
EVELYN WAUGH

Ability Cherish Friendship Ourselves
If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be.
EVELYN WAUGH

Answer Desire Desperate Emotion Hate Identity Love Name Philosophy Yourself
What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen.
EVELYN WAUGH

Exception See Woman Youth
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

Feeling Future Myself Past Present Room Side
Mr. Wodehouse’s idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.
EVELYN WAUGH

Future Generation Happiness Himself Live World
We possess nothing certainly except the past.
EVELYN WAUGH

Exception One Liner Past Possession
If politicians and scientists were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
EVELYN WAUGH

Happiness Politics Science
I think it’s one of the kindest things you can do to the very wicked, to give them time to repent.
EVELYN WAUGH

Kind Myself Thinking Time Wickedness
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.
EVELYN WAUGH

Bed Myself Need Rest Sleep Work
There is something incomparably thrilling in first opening a brand new book.
EVELYN WAUGH

Books Feeling Open Thrill
O God, make me good, but not yet.
EVELYN WAUGH

Character God Goodness One Liner
Enclosing every thin man, there’s a fat man demanding elbow-room.
EVELYN WAUGH

Demand Man Room
I regard writing not as an investigation of character but as an exercise in the use of language, and with this I am obsessed.
EVELYN WAUGH

Character Exercise Language Myself Obsession Regard Writing
My children weary me. I can only see them as defective adults: feckless, destructive, frivolous, sensual, humorless.
EVELYN WAUGH

Children Destruction Family Father Myself See
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

Conversation Goodness Missing Yourself
News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read.
EVELYN WAUGH

Care Media News Reading
After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can’t trust a person.
EVELYN WAUGH

Couple Love Person Relationship Trust Yourself
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.
EVELYN WAUGH

Action Alone Determination Worth Yourself
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
EVELYN WAUGH

Boredom One Liner Punctuality Time Virtue
Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.
EVELYN WAUGH

Character Let Go Mischief Need Yourself
When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.
EVELYN WAUGH

Argument Limitation Ourselves
I prefer all but the very worst travel books, to all but the very best novels.
EVELYN WAUGH

Best Book Novel Travel Worst
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.
EVELYN WAUGH

Dignity Forest Myself Power Ruin Thinking
To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.
EVELYN WAUGH

Human Love Oneself Relationship Root Wisdom

They are a very decent generous lot of people out here and they don’t expect you to listen. It’s the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.

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They are a very decent generous lot of people out here and they don’t expect you to listen. It’s the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Evelyn Waugh Quotes