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Like those crabs which dress themselves with seaweed, we wear belief and custom.

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
Like
Seaweed
Crabs
Custom
Customs
Dress
Dresses
Wear
Belief

More quotes by Cyril Connolly

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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
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The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him.
Cyril Connolly
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Carelessness is not fatal to journalism, nor are cliches, for the eye rests lightly on them. But what is intended to be read once can seldom be read more than once a journalist has to accept the fact that his work, by its very todayness, is excluded from any share in tomorrow.
Cyril Connolly
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Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.
Cyril Connolly
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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How many books did Renoir write on how to paint?
Cyril Connolly
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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
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When in doubt, choose greatness.
Cyril Connolly
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Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of charm.
Cyril Connolly
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Poets arguing about modern poetry: jackals snarling over a dried-up well.
Cyril Connolly
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.
Cyril Connolly
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The artist secretes nostalgia around life.
Cyril Connolly
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover.
Cyril Connolly
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There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another.
Cyril Connolly
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We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.
Cyril Connolly
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The lesson one can learn from Firbank is that of inconsequence. There is the vein which he tapped and which has not yet been fully exploited.
Cyril Connolly
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Youth is a period of missed opportunities.
Cyril Connolly
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Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.
Cyril Connolly