Cyril Connolly quotes

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once. (Cyril Connolly)
Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turn before we have learnt to walk. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. View quote
Cyril Connolly
There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of life. View quote
Cyril Connolly
There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall. View quote
Cyril Connolly
No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Like water, we are truest to our nature in repose. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Youth is a period of missed opportunities. View quote
Cyril Connolly
There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. (Cyril Connolly)
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising. View quote
Cyril Connolly
The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Imprisoned in every fat man a thin man is wildly signaling to be let out. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noise. View quote
Cyril Connolly
While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living. View quote
Cyril Connolly
The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married. View quote
Cyril Connolly
The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Everything is a dangerous drug to me except reality, which is unendurable. View quote
Cyril Connolly
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up. (Cyril Connolly)
The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him. View quote
Cyril Connolly
All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others. View quote
Cyril Connolly
No education is worth having that does not teach the lesson of concentration on a task, however unattractive. These lessons, if not learnt early, will be learnt, if at all, with pain and grief in later life. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action. View quote
Cyril Connolly