Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connollywas a literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizonand 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...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth10 September 1903
suicide creative despair
When even despair ceases to serve any creative purpose, then surely we are justified in suicide.
people waiting anxiety
We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.
ignorance passion darkness
Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness.
marriage independence achieve
Most of the beauty of women evaporates when they achieve domestic happiness at the price of their independence.
beach art genius
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.
infidelity age causes
It is the fear of middle-age in the young, of old-age in the middle-aged, which is the prime cause of infidelity, that infallible rejuvenator.
civilization next decadence
The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.
country past civilization
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.
failure bitterness overrated
Doing is overrated, and success undesirable, but the bitterness of failure even more so.
arguing modern poet
Poets arguing about modern poetry: jackals snarling over a dried-up well.
passion past serenity
No one can achieve Serenity until the glare of passion is past the meridian.
war world able
The disasters of the world are due to its inhabitants not being able to grow old simultaneously. There is always a raw and intolerant nation eager to destroy the tolerant and mellow.
selfish boredom bitterness
Beneath a mask of selfish tranquility nothing exists except bitterness and boredom.
running reality wind
Melancholy and remorse form the deep leaden keel which enables us to sail into the wind of reality; we run aground sooner than the flat-bottomed pleasure-lovers but we venture out in weather that would sink them and we choose our direction.