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When in doubt, choose greatness.

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
Greatness
Choose
Doubt

More quotes by Cyril Connolly

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Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.
Cyril Connolly
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Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.
Cyril Connolly
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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
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Marriage is the permanent conversation between two people who talk over everything and everyone until death breaks the record.
Cyril Connolly
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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
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There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.
Cyril Connolly
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The artist secretes nostalgia around life.
Cyril Connolly
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Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action.
Cyril Connolly
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Youth is a period of missed opportunities.
Cyril Connolly
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There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.
Cyril Connolly
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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No-one was ever made wretched in a brothel.
Cyril Connolly
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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.
Cyril Connolly
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It is after creation, in the elation of success, or the gloom of failure, that love becomes essential.
Cyril Connolly
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The artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure.
Cyril Connolly
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We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.
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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Industrial society seems likely to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part to problems of human behavior and in part to economic and environmental problems
Cyril Connolly
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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
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We love but once, for once only are we perfectly equipped for loving.
Cyril Connolly