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

• 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 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

• 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

• 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

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Reality, History, Drug

  1944 The Unquiet Grave, pt.1.

  13 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

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Lying, Autumn, Sun

  116 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

• 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 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

• 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

• 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

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Suicide, Responsible

  18 Copy quote

• No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.

  Cyril Connolly

  Morning, Men, Fog

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

  67 Copy quote

• The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him.

  Cyril Connolly

  Friendship, Respect, Lasts

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

  9 Copy quote

• When in doubt, choose greatness.

  Cyril Connolly

  Greatness, Doubt, When In Doubt

  10 Copy quote

• Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium.

  Cyril Connolly

  Class, Delirium Tremens, Apathy

  14 Copy quote

• The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence.

  Cyril Connolly

  Tasks, Literature, Produce

  Cyril Connolly, Peter Quennell (1984). “The selected essays of Cyril Connolly”

  8 Copy quote

• Flaubert spoke true: to succeed a great artist must have both character and fanaticism and few in this country are willing to pay the price. Our writers have either no personality and therefore no style or a false personality and therefore a bad style; they mistake prejudice for energy and accept the sensation of material well-being as a system of thought.

  Cyril Connolly

  Country, Mistake, Character

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

  14 Copy quote

• Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.

  Cyril Connolly

  Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Intelligence

  Enemies of Promise ch. 13 (1938)

  7 Copy quote

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