Evelyn Waugh Quotes

I think at the age of 50, everyone should write their own autobiography.

I used to think, 'How can I write my life story? I'm still living it.'

When I turned 45, I lay in bed reflecting on all life had taught me. My soul sprang a leak and ideas flowed out. My pen simply caught them and set the words on paper. I typed them up and turned them into a newspaper column of the 45 lessons life taught me. When I hit 50, I added five more lessons and the paper ran the column again.

What makes writing a memoir difficult is harder to quantify. Is it learning to know when you're ready to talk about something? Is it seeing the structure in a lumpen mass of fact? Is it finding out what you were really like as other people saw you? Yes to each.

Only if I reach 100 years old will I write a very complete autobiography. Not before.

I'm much more introspective than I was, say, thirty years ago.

As I look back over my life, I've been an active person - obviously I was self-absorbed for a period of time.

Any attempts at autobiography before the age of eighty seem pretty self-involved to me. There are a lot of smart middle aged people but not many wise ones.

I never thought I would write an autobiography, probably because my first novel, Go Now, is really all drawn from my life, even though it's more about the psychology going on.

I find my past in my present, and from these forecast my future.

The fact is that this conversation is going on at every level at every age, we're all going, "God, what a jerk I've been," "How could I have married that guy?" or "How could I have done this or that?" With time, this is the gift of being older, that you get to look back and say, "It wasn't all about them."

In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.

I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to say with icy superiority).

When I was 40, I used to wonder what people thought of me. Now I wonder what I think of them.

I wish I had been more self-aware earlier, but I think that just comes with age.

I'm older and older. With any experience you have, you know more about yourself.

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book.

I've done a lot of growing up since the age of 16 and I really wanted that to be reflected in my music.

I was 20 years old and felt I had a lot to offer, even to myself.

After adolescence, if one's life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.

I think I've become more modest as the years have gone on.

I feel like I've grown up a bit. I'm a bit more confident, and I've been reading more, and I've had a little more time to myself. I went on this writing trip to gather my thoughts about where and who I am in this world, and why we're all here.

I lived a very isolated life. When you start at 20, you have a lot of nonsense to work out of your system.

It's a beautiful thing at 60 to know who you are.

My goal is to get quieter as I get older.