Cyril Vernon Connolly was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon and wrote Enemies of Promise, which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of fiction that he had aspired to be in his youth.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Cyril Connolly
A mistake which is commonly made about neurotics is to suppose that they are interesting. It is not interesting to be always unhappy, engrossing with oneself, malignant and ungrateful, and never quite in touch with reality.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Insanity
Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Style
Like water, we are truest to our nature in repose.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Serenity
A writer is in danger of allowing his talent to dull who lets more than a year go past without finding himself in his rightful place of composition, the small single unluxurious “retreat” of the twentieth century, the hotel bedroom.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Travel
The secret of happiness … is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm, always lucid, always willing “to be joined to the universe without being more conscious of it than an idiot,” to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Acceptance, Happiness
Imprisoned in every fat man, a thin one is wildly signaling to be let out.
—Cyril Connolly
It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Country
The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Solitude
If our elaborate and dominating bodies are given us to be denied at every turn, if our nature is always wrong and wicked, how ineffectual we are – like fishes not meant to swim.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: The Body
Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we learn to walk.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Perseverance, Endurance, Resolve
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Journalists, Authors & Writing, Journalism, Literature
The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing
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
Topics: Harmony, Existence, Success
When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Age
The English masses are lovable: they are kind, decent, tolerant, practical and not stupid. The tragedy is that they are too many of them, and that they are aimless, having outgrown the servile functions for which they were encouraged to multiply. One day these huge crowds will have to seize power because there will be nothing else for them to do, and yet they neither demand power nor are ready to make use of it; they will learn only to be bored in a new way.
—Cyril Connolly
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
Topics: Art
Nothing dates like hate and in literature a little of it goes a very long way.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Hate
It is a mistake to expect good work from expatriates for it is not what they do that matters but what they are not doing.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Exile
A private school has all the faults of a public school without any of its compensations.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: School
In the sex-war thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Men and Women, Men & Women
All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Charm, Ego, Appreciation, Change
Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Greed, Blessings, Appreciation, Gratitude
Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of taste.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Swearing, Profanity, Vulgarity
Youth is a period of missed opportunities.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Youth
Never would it occur to a child that a sheep, a pig, a cow or a chicken was good to eat, while, like Milton’s Adam, he would eagerly make a meal off fruits, nuts, thyme, mint, peas and broad beans which penetrate further and stimulate not only the appetite but other vague and deep nostalgias. We are closer to the Vegetable Kingdom than we know; is it not for man alone that mint, thyme, sage, and rosemary exhale “crush me and eat me!”—for us that opium poppy, coffee-berry, tea-plant and vine perfect themselves? Their aim is to be absorbed by us, even if it can only be achieved by attaching themselves to roast mutton.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Vegetarianism
When writers meet they are truculent, indifferent, or over-polite. Then comes the inevitable moment. A shows B that he has read something of B s. Will B show A? If not, then A hates B, if yes, then all is well. The only other way for writers to meet is to share a quick pee over a common lamp-post.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing
The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Art
No taste is so acquired as that for someone else’s quality of mind.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Taste, Style
There cannot be a personal God without a pessimistic religion. As soon as there is a personal God he is a disappointing God.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: God
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
—Cyril Connolly
Topics: Talent, Praise
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