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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

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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
Forward
Move
Spurts
Grow
Clocks
Boys
Railway
Grows
Gradually
Moving
Stations
Hands
Clock
Like
Son

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Imagination is nostalgia for the past, the absent it is the liquid solution in which art develops the snapshot of reality.
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There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover.
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Beautiful women must think about their beauty as capitalists think about their investments or politicians about their majorities it is all they have to insure their places in the world.
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There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.
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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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Marriage is the permanent conversation between two people who talk over everything and everyone until death breaks the record.
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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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The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.
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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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Poets arguing about modern poetry: jackals snarling over a dried-up well.
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I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.
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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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The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.
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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.
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For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?
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There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives.
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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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When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.
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Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present.
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Today the function of the artist is to bring imagination to science and science to imagination, where they meet, in the myth.
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