black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

Evelyn Waugh

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

Ability Cherish Friendship Ourselves
Of the many smells of Athens two seem to me the most characteristic – that of garlic, bold and deadly like acetylene gas. and that of dust, soft and warm and caressing like tweed.
EVELYN WAUGH

Character Food Soft Warm
Enclosing every thin man, there’s a fat man demanding elbow-room.
EVELYN WAUGH

Demand Man Room
Once you start changing a name, you see, there’s no reason ever to stop. One always hears one that sounds better.
EVELYN WAUGH

Better Change Name Reason See Sound Start Stop Yourself
Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.
EVELYN WAUGH

Father Happiness Relationship Son
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
For in that city -New York; there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.
EVELYN WAUGH

Energy Mistake People Resident
The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant they are.
EVELYN WAUGH

Education Ignorance Modern Trouble Yourself
It is no longer possible to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis upon which it is based.
EVELYN WAUGH

Acceptance Civilization Possible Time
One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.
EVELYN WAUGH

Death Forget Name Oneself Vocabulary Word
We possess nothing certainly except the past.
EVELYN WAUGH

Exception One Liner Past Possession
I read the newspapers with lively interest. It is seldom that they are absolutely, point-blank wrong. That is the popular belief, but those who are in the know can usually discern an embryo of truth, a little grit of fact, like the core of a pearl, round which have been deposited the delicate layers of ornament.
EVELYN WAUGH

Live Myself Popular Reading Truth Wrong
All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.
EVELYN WAUGH

Happiness Myself Sleep Togetherness
O God, make me good, but not yet.
EVELYN WAUGH

Character God Goodness One Liner
Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity.
EVELYN WAUGH

Meaning Vulgar Word
Anyone could write a novel given six weeks, pen paper, and no telephone or wife.
EVELYN WAUGH

Books Novel Phone Wife Writing

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Evelyn Waugh Quotes