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

  58 Copy quote

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Opinion

  5 Copy quote

• The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

  Cyril Connolly

  Civilization, Next, Decadence

  1944 The Unquiet Grave, pt.2.

  10 Copy quote

• Only by avoiding the beginning of things can we escape their end.

  Cyril Connolly

  Ends, Avoiding

  5 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

• 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

  22 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

  38 Copy quote

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Self, Jail, Dungeons

  9 Copy quote

• Today the function of the artist is to bring imagination to science and science to imagination, where they meet, in the myth.

  Cyril Connolly

  Science, Artist, Technology

  8 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”

  7 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

• 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.

  25 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

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Reality, History, Drug

  1944 The Unquiet Grave, pt.1.

  13 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

  18 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

  10 Copy quote

• As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.

  Cyril Connolly

  Life, Fear, Publishing Books

  Enemies of Promise (1938) ch. 10

  25 Copy quote

• In the sex war, thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female.

  Cyril Connolly

  Cheating, Sex, War

  Unquiet Grave (1944) pt. 1

  24 Copy quote

• The man who is master of his passions is Reason's slave.

  Cyril Connolly

  Passion, Men, Slave

  6 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

  30 Copy quote

• When in doubt, choose greatness.

  Cyril Connolly

  Greatness, Doubt, When In Doubt

  8 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

• The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.

  Cyril Connolly

  Love, Dream, Lonely

  "Phil Spector: What I've Learned", www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

  11 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

  13 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

  15 Copy quote

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