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He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.

Evelyn Waugh

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Evelyn Waugh
Age: 62 †
Born: 1903
Born: October 28
Died: 1966
Died: April 10
Autobiographer
Diarist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
War Correspondent
Writer
Evelyn Arthur St John Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh
Rich
Sly
Self
Preservation
Sharp
Gifted
Passes
Instinct
Among
Wisdom

More quotes by Evelyn Waugh

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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 between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.
Evelyn Waugh
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Its theme-- the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters-- was perhaps presumptuously large, but I make no apology for it.
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It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
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Self-sufficiency at home, self-assertion abroad.
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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.
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From the earliest times the Welsh have been looked upon as an unclean people. It is thus that they have preserved their racial integrity. Their sons and daughters rarely mate with humankind except their own blood relations.
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The better sort of Ishmaelites have been Christian for many centuries and will not publicly eat human flesh uncooked in Lent, without special and costly dispensation from their bishop.
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We are American at puberty. We die French.
Evelyn Waugh
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I never can understand how two men can write a book together to me that's like three people getting together to have a baby.
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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 top to bottom.
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MGM bores me when I see them, but I don't see them much. They have been a help in getting me introductions to morticians, who are the only people worth knowing.
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An artist must be a reactionary
Evelyn Waugh
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If politicians and scientists were lazier, how much happier we should all be
Evelyn Waugh
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Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.
Evelyn Waugh
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I have lived carefully, sheltered myself from the cold winds, eaten moderately of what was in season, drunk fine claret, slept in my own sheets I shall live long.
Evelyn Waugh
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Not everyone grows to be old, but everyone has been younger than he is now.
Evelyn Waugh
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Limbo is the place. In Limbo one has natural happiness without the beatific vision no harps no communal order but wine and conversation and imperfect, various humanity. Limbo for the unbaptized, for the pious heathen, the sincere sceptic.
Evelyn Waugh
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We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.
Evelyn Waugh
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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.
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The splendid thing about education is that everyone wants it. Like influenza, you can give it away without losing any of it yourself.
Evelyn Waugh