Cyril Connolly Quotes

• Youth is a period of missed opportunities.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Opportunities, Missed

• Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Home, Words

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Destroy, Wish

• When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Faithful, Situations

• When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves, then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Thinking, Human

• We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament, and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Happy, Passion

• We love but once, for once only are we perfectly equipped for loving.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Perfectly, Loving

• Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of life.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Vulgarity

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Artist, Imagination, Science

• Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Belief

  Tags in Action, Thought

• There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Wisdom

  Tags in Lovers

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Enemy

  Tags in Good

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Fear

  Tags in Kill, Neighbours

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in True, Writer

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Thing, Sweet

• The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick peek over a common lamp-post.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Writers, Meet

• 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 in Uncategorized

  Tags in Function, True, Writer

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

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Fear

  Tags in Greater, Married

• The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Uncivilized, Forgiven

• The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure.

  Cyril Connolly

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Artist, Member

Cyril Connolly (70)

Birth:	10th July, 1903
Death:	26th November, 1974
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Writer

About

Cyril Vernon Connolly  was an English intellectual, 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.

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