While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living. Cyril Connolly More Quotes by Cyril Connolly More Quotes From Cyril Connolly 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 atheism poison christian When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types. Cyril Connolly faithful loyal literature The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence. Cyril Connolly produce tasks literature 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. Cyril Connolly small-numbers civilization people Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature. Cyril Connolly nature literature men The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet. Cyril Connolly smell sweet past A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he set out, will have condemned himself to second-hand thoughts and to second-rate friends. Cyril Connolly lazy laziness hands 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. Cyril Connolly dark art fall There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall. Cyril Connolly atheism enemy art Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising. Cyril Connolly intelligence sarcasm sarcastic Hate is crystallized fear, fear's dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear will be lurking. Cyril Connolly dividends hate hatred Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk. Cyril Connolly mazes walks life Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out. Cyril Connolly fats literature men In my religion, there would be no exclusive doctrine; all would be love, poetry, and doubt. Cyril Connolly doctrine doubt love Except for poverty, incompatibility, opposition of parents, absence of love on one side and of desire to marry on both, nothing stands in the way of our happy union. Cyril Connolly marriage parent love In my religion all believers would stop work at sundown and have a drink together. Cyril Connolly believer drink together It is significant comment on the victory of science over magic that were someone to say ‘if I put this pill in your beer it will explode,’ we might believe them; but were they to cry ‘if I pronounce this spell over your beer it will go flat,’ we should remain incredulous and Paracelsus, the Alchemists, Aleister Crowley and all the Magi have lived in vain. Yet when I read science I turn magical; when I study magic, scientific. Cyril Connolly over-you beer believe The river of truth is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between them, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the mainstream. Cyril Connolly arms truth rivers Sheep with a nasty side. Cyril Connolly insulting sides sheep 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 literature matter mistake
