There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. Cyril Connolly More Quotes by Cyril Connolly More Quotes From Cyril Connolly The books I haven't written are better than the books other people have. Cyril Connolly work writing book Everything is a dangerous drug except reality which is unendurable. Cyril Connolly drug history reality As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers. Cyril Connolly publishing-books fear life If Montaigne is a man in the prime of life sitting in his study on a warm morning and putting down the sum of his experience in his rich, sinewy prose, then Pascal is that same man lying awake in the small hours of the night when death seems very close and every thought is heightened by the apprehension that it may be his last. Cyril Connolly morning night lying Beneath a mask of selfish tranquility nothing exists except bitterness and boredom. I am one of those whom suffering has made empty and frivolous: each night in my dreams I pull the scab off a wound; each day, vacuous and habit-ridden, I help it re-form. Cyril Connolly selfish dream night Approaching forty, I had a singular dream in which I almost grasped the meaning and understood the nature of what it is that wastes in wasted time. Cyril Connolly understood waste dream Young writers if they are to mature require a period of between three and seven years in which to live down their promise. Promise is like the mediaeval hangman who after settling the noose, pushed his victim off the platform and jumped on his back, his weight acting a drop while his jockeying arms prevented the unfortunate from loosening the rope. When he judged him dead he dropped to the ground. Cyril Connolly writing promise years The man who is master of his passions is Reason's slave. Cyril Connolly slave passion men 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 flower lying Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once. Cyril Connolly literature writing art It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book. Cyril Connolly nature country book Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered. Cyril Connolly civilization country past Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear. Cyril Connolly greed comfort love Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present. Cyril Connolly infinite literature names Failure on the other hand is infectious. The world is full of charming failures (for all charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others) and unless the writer is quite ruthless with these amiable footlers, they will drag him down with them. Cyril Connolly appreciation hands people English Law: where there are two alternatives: one intelligent, one stupid; one attractive, one vulgar; one noble, one ape-like; one serious and sincere, one undignified and false; one far-sighted, one short; EVERYBODY will INVARIABLY choose the latter. Cyril Connolly intelligent stupid law An author arrives at a good style when his language performs what is required of it without shyness. Cyril Connolly style language writing The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure. Cyril Connolly leisure class art The lesson one can learn from Firbank is that of inconsequence. There is the vein which he tapped and which has not yet been fully exploited. Cyril Connolly veins lessons The shock, for an intelligent writer, of discovering for the first time that there are people younger than himself who think him stupid is severe. Cyril Connolly intelligent stupid thinking
