Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh, 1903 - 1966
Portrait by Carl Van Vechten (15 December 1940)
Born: 28 October 1903, London, England, UK
Died: 10 April 1966, Combe Florey, Somerset, England, UK
The son of a noted editor and publisher (Arthur Waugh), he was raised in an upper-middle class home and attended Heath Mount School. He would have gone on to Sherborne but his older brother had embarrassed them so the school refused to accept Evelyn who then went to Lancing College. He went to Hertford College, Oxford but devoted his energy to his social life, his exams were such that he would have ended with third-class degree, so he didn't bother finishing. He taught in Wales for a while, tried to drown himself at one point, then turned to writing and was a success from the start. He converted to Catholicism in 1930. His early work was brilliant satire, he traveled extensively in the 1930s, resulting in several books that are still regarded as among the best ever. When war came he saw combat in Africa, Crete, and Yugoslavia and his Sword of Honor trilogy covering based on his war experience was well received. He was injured in a parachute jump in 1943, the recovery gave him time to finish Brideshead Revisited. After the war he lived in the West Country, from 1956 on at Combe Florey, Somerset. He was critical of Vatican II (he deplored the vernacular), and in 1966 he went to his beloved Latin Mass on Easter, came home, and had a fatal heart attack on his toilet.
Biography from Wikipedia and American Society of Authors and Writers
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
Evelyn Waugh quotes:
Quotes found : 78 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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- Aesthetic value is often the by-product of the artist striving to do something else. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976) - After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies (1930) - All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies (1930) - An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums who find prison so soul-destroying. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall (1928) - Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Don't give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can't express them. Don't analyze yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Reviewing World within World, the autobiography of Stephen Spender, in The Tablet (5 May 1951) - 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. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - The Tablet (9 May 1951) - 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. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Scoop (1938) - His strongest tastes were negative. He abhorred plastics, Picasso, sunbathing and jazz — everything in fact that had happened in his own lifetime. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957) - I came to the conclusion many years ago that almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall (1928) - I can never understand how two men can write a book together; to me, that's like three people getting together to have a baby. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - I don't believe that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn't been told about it. It's like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn't been told it existed. permalink
Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall (1928)
Quotes found : 78 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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