Quotes By Cyril Connolly

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

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

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

Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.

A best-seller is the golden touch of mediocre talent.

Like water, we are truest to our nature in repose.

The artist one day falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment he is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near to the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above.

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

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.

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, - something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.

Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of life.

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

No taste is so acquired as that for someone else's quality of mind.

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

Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

Youth is a period of missed opportunities.

Imprisoned in every fat man a thin man is wildly signaling to be let out.

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

It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book.