# Quote — Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall

> It's the seed of life we carry about with us like our skeletons, each one of us unconsciously pregnant with desirable villa residences. There's no escape. As individuals we simply do not exist. We are just potential home builders, beavers, and ants. How do we come into being? What is birth? (Part One, Chapter XII)

- Author: [Evelyn Waugh](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-waugh.md)
- Book: [Decline and Fall](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-waugh/decline-and-fall.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evelyn_Waugh#Decline_and_Fall_(1928)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-waugh/decline-and-fall/its-the-seed

## More from this book

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-waugh/decline-and-fall/i-havent-been.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-waugh/decline-and-fall/anyone-who-has.md)

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

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-waugh/decline-and-fall/i-came-to-the.md)