Evelyn Waugh: "You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic"

I like this:

According to a literary anecdote, the author Nancy Mitford had asked Waugh how he could behave so abominably and yet still consider himself a practicing Catholic. "You have no idea," had Waugh replied, "how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being." -- The New Criterion Reader

mk