Quote

Failure on the other hand is infectious. The world is full of charming failures (for all charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others) and unless the writer is quite ruthless with these amiable footlers, they will drag him down with them.

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
Hand
Appreciation
Infectious
Others
Total
Amiable
Hands
Failure
Conceal
Something
Usually
Ruthless
World
Unless
Dependence
People
Writer
Failures
Full
Charming
Quite
Drag

More quotes by 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
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
Sheep with a nasty side.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice journalism what will be grasped at once.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Youth is a period of missed opportunities.
Cyril Connolly
Image
We create the world in which we live if that world becomes unfit for human life, it is because we tire of our responsibility.
Cyril Connolly
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Hate is crystallized fear, fear's dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear will be lurking.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of charm.
Cyril Connolly
Image
The shock, for an intelligent writer, of discovering for the first time that there are people younger than himself who think him stupid is severe.
Cyril Connolly
Image
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
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
We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Marriage is the permanent conversation between two people who talk over everything and everyone until death breaks the record.
Cyril Connolly
Image
The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence.
Cyril Connolly
Image
Longevity is the revenge of talent upon genius.
Cyril Connolly
Image
No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
Cyril Connolly
Image
There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover.
Cyril Connolly