Quote

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

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Cyril Connolly
Age: 71 †
Born: 1903
Born: September 10
Died: 1974
Died: November 26
Critic
Literary Critic
Novelist
Writer
Coventry
England
UK
Cyril Vernon Connolly
Party
Architecture
Underground
Moment
Rivers
Rapids
Fall
Surface
Hole
Artist
Following
Falls
Moments
Flow
Parties
Art
Laughing
River
Brambles
May
Heard
Holes
Picnic
Sometimes
Dark
Near
Picnics

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There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover.
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The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence.
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The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick peek over a common lamp-post.
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We love but once, for once only are we perfectly equipped for loving.
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Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
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Miserable Orpheus who, turning to lose his Eurydice, beholds her for the first time as well as the last.
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Melancholy and remorse forms the deep leaden keel which enables us to sail into the wind of reality.
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The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest.
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The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.
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Carelessness is not fatal to journalism, nor are cliches, for the eye rests lightly on them. But what is intended to be read once can seldom be read more than once a journalist has to accept the fact that his work, by its very todayness, is excluded from any share in tomorrow.
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No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
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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.
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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.
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There is immunity in reading, immunity in formal society, in office routine, in the company of old friends and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. The past with its anguish will break through every defense-line of custom and habit we must sleep and therefore we must dream.
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An author arrives at a good style when his language performs what is required of it without shyness.
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We fear something before we hate.
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There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.
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Hate is the consequence of fear we fear something before we hate a child who fears noises becomes the man who hates them.
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Longevity is the revenge of talent upon genius.
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Peace ... is a morbid condition, due to a surplus of civilians, which war seeks to remedy.
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