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Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.

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
Wish
Sarcasm
Firsts
Sarcastic
First
Gods
Destroy
Intelligence
Promise
Prelude
Talent
Promising
Call
Neurosis

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A woman's desire for revenge outlasts all her other emotions.
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Peace ... is a morbid condition, due to a surplus of civilians, which war seeks to remedy.
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Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
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Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium.
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In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?
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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 pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another.
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From now on - specialize never again make any concession to the ninety-nine percent of you which is like everyon else at the expense of the one percent which is unique.
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Youth is a period of missed opportunities.
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The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.
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There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.
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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.
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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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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.
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The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.
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Poets arguing about modern poetry: jackals snarling over a dried-up well.
Cyril Connolly
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If Montaigne is a man in the prime of life sitting in his study on a warm morning and putting down the sum of his experience in his rich, sinewy prose, then Pascal is that same man lying awake in the small hours of the night when death seems very close and every thought is heightened by the apprehension that it may be his last.
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.
Cyril Connolly
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Boys do not grow up gradually. They move forward in spurts like the hands of clocks in railway stations.
Cyril Connolly