The Loved One Quotes

“Her heart was broken perhaps, but it was a small inexpensive organ of local manufacture. In a wider and grander way she felt things had been simplified.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“They are a very decent, generous lot of people out here and they don't expect you to listen. Always remember that, dear boy. It's the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“Once you start changing a name, you see, there's no reason ever to stop. One always hears one that sounds better.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“What is a "canty day", Dennis?'
'I've never troubled to ask. Something like hogmanay, I expect.'
'What is that?'
'People being sick on the pavement in Glasgow.'
'Oh.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“Outside the windows the cars swept past continuously, out of town, into town, lights ablaze, radios at full throttle. “I wither slowly in thine arms,” he read. “Here at the quiet limit of the world,” and repeated to himself: “Here at the quiet limit of the world. Here at the quiet limit of the world”… as a monk will repeat a simple pregnant text, over and over again in prayer.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“Mr. Schultz, you're jealous of whispering Glades."

"And why wouldn't I be seeing all that dough going on relations they've hated all their lives, while the pets who've loved them and stood by them , never asked no questions, never complained, rich or poor, sickness or health, get buried anyhow like animals?”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“Aimée Thanatogenos spoke the tongue of Los Angeles; the sparse furniture of her mind—the objects which barked the intruder's shins—had been acquired at the local High School and University; she presented herself to the world dressed and scented in obedience to the advertisements; brain and body were scarcely distinguishable from the standard product, but the spirit—ah, the spirit was something apart; it had to be sought afar; not here in the musky orchards of the Hesperides, but in the mountain air of the dawn, in the eagle-haunted passes of Hellas. An umbilical cord of cafés and fruit shops, of ancestral shady businesses (fencing and pimping) united Aimée, all unconscious, to the high places of her race. As she grew up the only language she knew expressed fewer and fewer of her ripening needs; the facts which littered her memory grew less substantial; the figure she saw in the looking-glass seemed less recognizably herself. Aimée withdrew herself into a lofty and hieratic habitation.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“What is a ‘canty day,’ Dennis?” “I’ve never troubled to ask. Something like Hogmanay, I expect.” “What is that?” “People being sick on the pavement in Glasgow.” “Oh.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“And why wouldn’t I be seeing all that dough going on relations they’ve hated all their lives, while the pets who’ve loved them and stood by them, never asked no questions, never complained, rich or poor, sickness or health, get buried anyhow like they was just animals?”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“Who asked you to the funeral anyway? Were you acquainted with the late parrot?”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“Dennis hesitated with his fingers on the handle and was aware of communication with another hand beyond the panels. Thus in a hundred novels had loves stood.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“Pînă atunci îl tratase cu acea prietenie impersonală, insensibilă, care ține loc de politețe în această țară de oameni părăsiți și rătăciți.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

“he is not at all such an admirable character. First he is British and therefore in many ways quite Un-American. I do not mean just his accent and the way he eats but he is cynical at things which should be Sacred.”
― Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One