After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person.
That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the challenges of the public-school system, emphasizing that while students may face setbacks, the system itself remains steadfast.
Evelyn Waugh's quote reflects the paradox of the public-school system, where students may be expelled or face harsh treatment but are still supported by the overarching structure that aims to educate. It suggests that despite potential failures at the individual level, the system continues to function and provide opportunities for learning and growth, embodying a resilience that can be both frustrating and reassuring.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a speech at a school board meeting to discuss educational reform.
More from Evelyn Waugh
All quotes βIt is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
There are no poetic ideas; only poetic utterances.
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
...she had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to her, the thwarted look that had seemed to say, "Surely I was made for some other purpose than this?
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.
Similar quotes
There is no better way to exercise the imagination than the study of the law.
As children growing up here in the East Bay, we were raised by a community with a deep belief in the promise of our country - and, a deep understanding of the parts of that promise that still remain unfulfilled.
We are human behind and this part of our human nature that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands. In Pakistan, when we were stopped from going to school, and that time I realized that education is very important, and education is the power for women. And that's why the terrorists are afraid of education. They do not want women to get education because then women will become more powerful.
We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.
Specialized management courses are useful but should come well after the complexity of management and business are understood.
My greatest strength as a child, I realize now, was my imagination. While every other kid was reading and writing, I had seven whole hours a day to practice my imagination. When do you get that space in your life, ever?