Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Language
Adult
Remember
Perfectly
Best
Patient
Never
Adults
Life
However
Study
Hope
Bore
Learn
Bores

More quotes by Evelyn Waugh

Image
For in that city [New York] there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
He did not fail in love, but he lost the joy of it [...]
Evelyn Waugh
Image
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
Image
Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
Words should be an intense pleasure just as leather should be to a shoemaker.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
The anguished suspense of watching the lips you hunger for, framing the words, the death sentence, of sheer triteness!
Evelyn Waugh
Image
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.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
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.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
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
Image
Not everyone grows to be old, but everyone has been younger than he is now.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
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
Image
The Welsh are the only nation in the world that has produced no graphic or plastic art, no architecture, no drama. They just sing. Sing and blow down wind instruments of plated silver.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
If Brideshead Revisited is not a great book, it's so like a great book that many of us, at least while reading it, find it hard to tell the difference.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
Evelyn Waugh: How do you get your main pleasure in life, Sir William? Sir William Beveridge: I get mine trying to leave the world a better place than I found it. Waugh: I get mine spreading alarm and despondency and I get more satisfaction than you do.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
I prefer all but the very worst travel books, to all but the very best novels.
Evelyn Waugh
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There are no poetic ideas only poetic utterances.
Evelyn Waugh