Quote

Imagination is nostalgia for the past, the absent it is the liquid solution in which art develops the snapshot of reality.

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
Reality
Develops
Past
Liquid
Absent
Nostalgia
Solution
Solutions
Imagination
Snapshot
Art
Snapshots

More quotes by Cyril Connolly

Image
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
Image
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.
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
As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.
Cyril Connolly
Image
A woman's desire for revenge outlasts all her other emotions.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.
Cyril Connolly
Image
It is a mistake to expect good work from expatriates for it is not what they do that matters but what they are not doing.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of charm.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Beneath a mask of selfish tranquility nothing exists except bitterness and boredom. I am one of those whom suffering has made empty and frivolous: each night in my dreams I pull the scab off a wound each day, vacuous and habit-ridden, I help it re-form.
Cyril Connolly
Image
No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.
Cyril Connolly
Image
When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves, then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.
Cyril Connolly
Image
The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Youth is a period of missed opportunities.
Cyril Connolly
Image
We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.
Cyril Connolly
Image
For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?
Cyril Connolly
Image
Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Hate is the consequence of fear we fear something before we hate a child who fears noises becomes the man who hates them.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Believing in Hell must distort every judgement on this life.
Cyril Connolly
Image
When I write after dark the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose.
Cyril Connolly