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Poets arguing about modern poetry: jackals snarling over a dried-up well.

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
Wells
Snarling
Well
Jackals
Dried
Poets
Arguing
Poet
Poetry
Modern

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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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There is immunity in reading, immunity in formal society, in office routine, in the company of old friends and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. The past with its anguish will break through every defense-line of custom and habit we must sleep and therefore we must dream.
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No one can achieve Serenity until the glare of passion is past the meridian.
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The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.
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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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No-one was ever made wretched in a brothel.
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When in doubt, choose greatness.
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The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest.
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As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.
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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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Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.
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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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Longevity is the revenge of talent upon genius.
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We fear something before we hate.
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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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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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In youth the life of reason is not in itself sufficient afterwards the life of emotion, except for short periods, becomes unbearable.
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The man who is master of his passions is Reason's slave.
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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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Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.
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