Brideshead Revisited Quotes

• I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Ugly, Remember, Miserable

  70 Copy quote

• Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman's day; her autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days - such as that day - when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamour.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Summer, Laughter, Flower

  6 Copy quote

• I felt that I was leaving part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried material treasures without which they cannot pay their way to the nether world.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Leaving, World, Treasure

  Evelyn Waugh (2012). “Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder”, p.170, Penguin UK

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• The languor of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost!

  Evelyn Waugh

  Unique, Youth, Lost

  7 Copy quote

• Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Past, Rooms, Sides

  Evelyn Waugh (1958). “The world of Evelyn Waugh”

  53 Copy quote

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• Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Work, Blessing, Bores You

  Michael Davie (ed.) Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976) "Irregular Notes 1960-65," 26 Mar. 1962

  121 Copy quote

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• I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don't want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Travel, Italian, Venice

  10 Copy quote

• If it could only be like this always - always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Summer, Fruit, Always Alone

  Evelyn Waugh (2012). “Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder”, p.81, Penguin UK

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• But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiosity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Wall, Heart, Garden

  Evelyn Waugh (2012). “Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder”, p.35, Penguin UK

  27 Copy quote

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• These memories, which are my life--for we possess nothing certainly except the past--were always with me.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Memories, Past

  Evelyn Waugh (1958). “The world of Evelyn Waugh”

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• Oh God, make me good, but not yet.

  SebastiAn

  7 Copy quote

• Where can we hide in fair weather, we orphans of the storm?

  Evelyn Waugh

  Weather, Storm, Orphan

  8 Copy quote

• It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Pie, People, Matter

  "Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder". Book by Evelyn Waugh, 1945.

  16 Copy quote

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• Perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Love, Disappointment, Spring

  "Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder". Book by Evelyn Waugh, 1945.

  39 Copy quote

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• It is no longer possible to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis upon which it is based.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Civilization, Benefits, Accepting

  Evelyn Waugh, John Carmel Heenan, Alcuin Reid (2011). “A Bitter Trial: Evelyn Waugh and John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on the Liturgical Changes”, p.16, Ignatius Press

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• ... To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Roots, And Love, Humans

  Evelyn Waugh (2012). “Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder”, p.49, Penguin UK

  50 Copy quote

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• 'I don't believe you've changed at all, Charles.' 'No, I'm afraid not.' 'D'you want to change?' 'It's the only evidence of life.'

  Evelyn Waugh

  Change, Evidence

  "Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder".

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• O God, make me good, but not yet.

  Evelyn Waugh

  "Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder". Book by Evelyn Waugh, 1945.

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• No one is ever holy without suffering.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Suffering, Holy

  Evelyn Waugh (1958). “The world of Evelyn Waugh”

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• If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Hate, Who I Am, Names

  8 Copy quote

• That was the change in her from ten years ago; that, indeed, was her reward, this haunting, magical sadness which spoke straight to the heart and struck silence; it was the completion of her beauty.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Heart, Sadness, Years

  Evelyn Waugh (1958). “The world of Evelyn Waugh”

  8 Copy quote

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• No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can't really hate God either. When they want to Hate Him and His saints they have to find something like themselves and pretends it's God and hate that.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Hate, Saint, Want

  8 Copy quote

• The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what's been taught and what's been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn't know existed.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Intelligent, People, Confusion

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Giving Up, Despair, Needs

  16 Copy quote

• He did not fail in love, but he lost the joy of it [...]

  Evelyn Waugh

  Joy, Failing, Lost

  8 Copy quote