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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

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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
People
Places
Civilization
Blot
Number
Prisons
Numbers
Maintained
Small
Altogether
Literature
Bombs
Need
Terrorism
Needs
Prison

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Hemingway is great in that alone of living writers he has saturated his work with the memory of physical pleasure, with sunshine and salt water, with food, wine and making love and the remorse which is the shadow of that sun.
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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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We cannot be happy until we can love ourselves without egotism and our friends without tyranny.
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Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice journalism what will be grasped at once.
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The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.
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The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest.
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No one can achieve Serenity until the glare of passion is past the meridian.
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The man who is master of his passions is Reason's slave.
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There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover.
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When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.
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Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk.
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It is after creation, in the elation of success, or the gloom of failure, that love becomes essential.
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That sinister Stonehenge of economic man, Rockefeller Center.
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Like the bee its sting, the promiscuous leave behind them in each encounter something of themselves by which they are made to suffer.
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There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another.
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Peace ... is a morbid condition, due to a surplus of civilians, which war seeks to remedy.
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Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.
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There cannot be a personal God without a pessimistic religion. As soon as there is a personal God he is a disappointing God.
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There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.
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There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.
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