Cyril Connolly Quotes

Quotes about:

• Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

  Cyril Connolly

  Inspirational, Respect, Clever

  New Statesman 25 Feb. 1933

  61 Copy quote

• A woman's desire for revenge outlasts all her other emotions.

  Cyril Connolly

  Cheating, Revenge, Women

  12 Copy quote

• Everyone has the right to express an opinion. No one has the right to be listened to.

  Cyril Connolly

  Opinion

  6 Copy quote

• The true work of art is the one which the seventh wave of genius throws up the beach where the undertow of time cannot drag it back.

  Cyril Connolly

  Beach, Art, Genius

  8 Copy quote

• There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.

  Cyril Connolly

  Art, Enemy, Atheism

  Enemies of Promise (1938) ch. 14

  67 Copy quote

• There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another.

  Cyril Connolly

  Pain, Bad Relationship, Two

  6 Copy quote

• The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.

  Cyril Connolly

  Life, Success, Secret

  24 Copy quote

• The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest.

  Cyril Connolly

  Communication, Survival, Society

  5 Copy quote

• The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.

  Cyril Connolly

  Marriage, Inspiration, Health

  Unquiet Grave (1944) pt. 2

  39 Copy quote

• Everything is a dangerous drug except reality which is unendurable.

  Cyril Connolly

  Reality, History, Drug

  1944 The Unquiet Grave, pt.1.

  13 Copy quote

• Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.

  Cyril Connolly

  Lying, Autumn, Sun

  116 Copy quote

• A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he set out, will have condemned himself to second-hand thoughts and to second-rate friends.

  Cyril Connolly

  Hands, Lazy, Laziness

  12 Copy quote

• Obesity is a mental state, a disease brought on by boredom and disappointment.

  Cyril Connolly

  Motivational, Disappointment, Loss

  The Unquiet Grave Pt I

  12 Copy quote

• We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.

  Cyril Connolly

  Self, Jail, Dungeons

  11 Copy quote

• It is after creation, in the elation of success, or the gloom of failure, that love becomes essential.

  Cyril Connolly

  Love Is, Essentials, Elation

  Cyril Connolly (2008). “Enemies of Promise”, p.136, University of Chicago Press

  21 Copy quote

• Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate; a child who fears noises becomes the man who hates them.

  Cyril Connolly

  Children, Fear, Hate

  "The Unquiet Grave". Book by Cyril Connolly, 1944.

  26 Copy quote

• All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

  Cyril Connolly

  Appreciation, People, Ego

  Enemies of Promise (1938) ch. 16

  33 Copy quote

• Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk.

  Cyril Connolly

  Life, Mazes, Walks

  26 Copy quote

• When in doubt, choose greatness.

  Cyril Connolly

  Greatness, Doubt, When In Doubt

  10 Copy quote

• If one is too lazy to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom.

  Cyril Connolly

  Wisdom, Thinking, Lazy

  19 Copy quote

• Beautiful women must think about their beauty as capitalists think about their investments or politicians about their majorities; it is all they have to insure their places in the world.

  Cyril Connolly

  Funny, Beauty, Beautiful

  5 Copy quote

• The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.

  Cyril Connolly

  Sweet, Past, Smell

  David Pryce-Jones, Cyril Connolly (1983). “Cyril Connolly: Journal and Memoir”, HarperCollins

  13 Copy quote

• Failure on the other hand is infectious. The world is full of charming failures (for all charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others) and unless the writer is quite ruthless with these amiable footlers, they will drag him down with them.

  Cyril Connolly

  Appreciation, Hands, People

  Cyril Connolly (1960). “Enemies of promise and other essays: an autobiography of ideas”

  8 Copy quote

• There are only three things which make life worth living: to be writing a tolerably good book, to be in a dinner party of six, and to be traveling south with someone whom your conscience permits you to love.

  Cyril Connolly

  Party, Book, Writing

  5 Copy quote

• There is no suicide for which all society is not responsible.

  Cyril Connolly

  Suicide, Responsible

  18 Copy quote

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