Donna Leon
American crime novelist (born 1942)
Evelyn Waugh was an acclaimed English writer known for his novels, biographies, and travel books. He was a master of prose and a prolific journalist, with works like Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy cementing his status as one of the great 20th-century literary figures.
Table of Contents
Occupation
Family Info
Siblings
Spouses
Laura Herbert
Evelyn Gardner
Children
Maria Teresa Waugh
Mary Waugh
Margaret Evelyn Waugh
Harriet Mary Waugh
James Waugh
Septimus Waugh
About the Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waughwas an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires Decline and Falland A Handful of Dustgreatly disturbed his sensibilities, especially the introduction of the vernacular Mass. That blow to his religious traditionalism, his dislike for the welfare state culture of the postwar world, and the decline of his health all darkened his final years, but he continued to write. He displayed to the world a mask of indifference, but he was capable of great kindness to those whom he considered his friends. After his death in 1966, he acquired a following of new readers through the film and television versions of his works, such as the television serial Brideshead Revisited (1981).
Frequently Asked Questions
Evelyn Waugh was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books, as well as a prolific journalist and book reviewer. He is recognized as one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century.
Evelyn Waugh’s most famous works include the early satires Decline and Fall and A Handful of Dust, the novel Brideshead Revisited, and the Second World War trilogy Sword of Honour.
Evelyn Waugh was the son of a publisher, educated at Lancing College and Hertford College, Oxford. He worked briefly as a schoolmaster before becoming a full-time writer.
Evelyn Waugh travelled extensively in the 1930s and served in the British armed forces during World War II, experiences he often drew upon in his works of fiction, generally to humorous effect.
Evelyn Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930 after his first marriage failed. His traditionalist stance led him to strongly oppose attempts to reform the Church, and the changes of the Second Vatican Council greatly disturbed his sensibilities.
The blow of the Second Vatican Council changes, his dislike for the welfare state culture of the postwar world, and the decline of his health all darkened Evelyn Waugh’s final years, but he continued to write until his death in 1966.
After Evelyn Waugh’s death, he acquired a following of new readers through the film and television versions of his works, such as the television serial Brideshead Revisited in 1981.
34 Quotes by Evelyn Waugh
- 1.
News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 2.
My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 3.
If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 4.
Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 5.
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 WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 6.
One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 7.
Other nations use ‘force’; we Britons alone use ‘Might’.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 8.
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 9.
Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 10.
I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 11.
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 12.
In the dying world I come from, quotation is a national vice.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 13.
Money is only useful when you get rid of it. It is like the odd card in “Old Maid”; the player who is finally left with it has lost.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 14.
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 15.
The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 16.
We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 17.
There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 18.
Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 19.
Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 20.
We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 21.
When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 22.
Don’t hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 23.
What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 24.
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 25.
Pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 26.
The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 27.
You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 28.
It is a curious thing… that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 29.
All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 30.
I put the words down and push them a bit.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 31.
Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 32.
There is a species of person called a ‘Modern Churchman’ who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 33.
Not everyone grows to be old, but everyone has been younger than he is now.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)
- 34.
He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.
Evelyn WaughBritish writer and journalist (1903-1966)