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

  57 Copy quote

• Boys do not grow up gradually. They move forward in spurts like the hands of clocks in railway stations.

  Cyril Connolly

  Growing Up, Moving, Son

  7 Copy quote

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Opinion

  4 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

  37 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.

  24 Copy quote

• Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.

  Cyril Connolly

  Men, Literature, Fats

  "Cyril Connolly: journal and memoir".

  6 Copy quote

• Melancholy and remorse forms the deep leaden keel which enables us to sail into the wind of reality.

  Cyril Connolly

  Sadness, Reality, Wind

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

  4 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

  20 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

  17 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

  66 Copy quote

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Self, Jail, Dungeons

  7 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

  11 Copy quote

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Lying, Autumn, Sun

  113 Copy quote

• While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.

  Cyril Connolly

  Alive, Literature

  27 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

  27 Copy quote

• The river of truth is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between them, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the mainstream.

  Cyril Connolly

  Truth, Rivers, Arms

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

  6 Copy quote

• When in doubt, choose greatness.

  Cyril Connolly

  Greatness, Doubt, When In Doubt

  7 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.

  63 Copy quote

• Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.

  Cyril Connolly

  Inspirational, Nice, Writing

  David Pryce-Jones, Cyril Connolly (1984). “Cyril Connolly: Journal and Memoir”

  7 Copy quote

• Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present.

  Cyril Connolly

  Names, Literature, Infinite

  David Pryce-Jones, Cyril Connolly (1984). “Cyril Connolly: Journal and Memoir”

  10 Copy quote

• There is no hate without fear. Hate is crystallized fear, fear's dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear is lurking. Thus we hate what threatens our person, our liberty, our privacy, our income, our popularity, our vanity and our dreams and plans for ourselves. If we can isolate this element in what we hate we may be able to cease from hating... 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

  Dream, Children, Hate

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

  13 Copy quote

• There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.

  Cyril Connolly

  Funny, Death, Suicide

  The Unquiet Grave Pt II

  30 Copy quote

• A stone lies in a river; a piece of wood is jammed against it; dead leaves, drifting logs, and branches caked with mud collect; weeds settle there, and soon birds have made a nest and are feeding their young among the blossoming water plants. Then the river rises and the earth is washed away. The birds depart, the flowers wither, the branches are dislodged and drift downward; no trace is left of the floating island but a stone submerged by the water; - such is our personality.

  Cyril Connolly

  Weed, Lying, Flower

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

  7 Copy quote

• The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

  Cyril Connolly

  Civilization, Luxury, Goal

  14 Copy quote

• Industrial society seems likely to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part to problems of human behavior and in part to economic and environmental problems

  Cyril Connolly

  Stress, Environmental, Entering

  23 Copy quote

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