Quote

Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity.

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
Metaphor
Basic
Conscious
Either
Inexcusable
Words
Inalienable
Writing
Vulgarity
Meanings
Departure

More quotes by Evelyn Waugh

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Self-sufficiency at home, self-assertion abroad.
Evelyn Waugh
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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. Julia to Charles
Evelyn Waugh
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His heart some long word at the heart. He is dying of a long word.
Evelyn Waugh
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You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.
Evelyn Waugh
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It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up.
Evelyn Waugh
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Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.
Evelyn Waugh
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News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read.
Evelyn Waugh
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I am suing Lord Beaverbrook for libel and hope for some lovely tax-free money in damages. He has very conveniently told some lies about me.
Evelyn Waugh
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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
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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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An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor [group think] of the age and not go flopping along. By doing this he helps us to question and reassess our past, present and future situations, our assumptions and our options.
Evelyn Waugh
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Where can we hide in fair weather, we orphans of the storm?
Evelyn Waugh
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The anguished suspense of watching the lips you hunger for, framing the words, the death sentence, of sheer triteness!
Evelyn Waugh
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Beerbohm was a genius of the purest kind. He stands at the summit of his art.
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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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
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I think there's almost nothing I can't excuse except perhaps worshiping graven images. That seems to be idiotic.
Evelyn Waugh
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Enclosing every thin man, there's a fat man demanding elbow-room.
Evelyn Waugh
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Once you start changing a name, you see, there's no reason ever to stop. One always hears one that sounds better.
Evelyn Waugh
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My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time. We possess nothing certainly except the past.
Evelyn Waugh