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Quotes from Decline and Fall — Evelyn Waugh

1903–1966 England

← All quotes by Evelyn Waugh

16 quotes

Shady young men in Charvet shirts sit round the bar repairing with powder-puff and lipstick the ravages of grenadine and crème de cacao.

Decline and Fall (1928)

I'm one of the blind alleys off the main road of procreation.

Decline and Fall (1928)

Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.

Decline and Fall (1928)

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.

Decline and Fall (1928)

There will be a prize of half a crown for the longest essay, irrespective of any possible merit.

Decline and Fall (1928)

I came to the conclusion many years ago that almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.

Decline and Fall (1928)

Please bear in mind throughout that IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY.

Decline and Fall (1928)

That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.

Decline and Fall (1928)

I expect you'll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That's what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behaviour.

Decline and Fall (1928)

And the only interest about him arises from the unusual series of events of which his shadow was witness.

Decline and Fall (1928)

They should have told me that at the end of that gay journey and flower-strewn path were the hideous lights of home and the voices of children.

Decline and Fall (1928)

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.

Decline and Fall (1928)

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.

Decline and Fall (1928)

Chokey thinks religion is just divine.

Decline and Fall (1928)

Mr. Sniggs, the Junior Dean, and Mr. Postlethwaite, the Domestic Bursar, sat alone in Mr. Sniggs's room overlooking the garden quad at Scone College.

Decline and Fall (1928)

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

Decline and Fall (1928)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Evelyn Waugh (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.