Quote

The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.

Cyril Connolly

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Thing
Smells
Cynical
Smell
Sweet
Dead
Literature
Past

More quotes by Cyril Connolly

Image
Today the function of the artist is to bring imagination to science and science to imagination, where they meet, in the myth.
Cyril Connolly
Image
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
Image
As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.
Cyril Connolly
Image
A writer is in danger of allowing his talent to dull who lets more than a year go past without finding himself in his rightful place of composition, the small single unluxurious retreat of the twentieth century, the hotel bedroom.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
Cyril Connolly
Image
There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.
Cyril Connolly
Image
When even despair ceases to serve any creative purpose, then surely we are justified in suicide.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Doing is overrated, and success undesirable, but the bitterness of failure even more so.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Peace ... is a morbid condition, due to a surplus of civilians, which war seeks to remedy.
Cyril Connolly
Image
In youth the life of reason is not in itself sufficient afterwards the life of emotion, except for short periods, becomes unbearable.
Cyril Connolly
Image
The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.
Cyril Connolly
Image
There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.
Cyril Connolly
Image
When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.
Cyril Connolly
Image
In my religion all believers would stop work at sundown and have a drink together.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Marriage is the permanent conversation between two people who talk over everything and everyone until death breaks the record.
Cyril Connolly
Image
The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.
Cyril Connolly
Image
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.
Cyril Connolly
Image
No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
Cyril Connolly