Cyril Connolly

Our memories are card indexes consulted, and then put back in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.

Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with irrational fear of life become publishers.
Cyril Connolly - Enemies of Promise (1938)
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once.

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say.

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say.
Cyril Connolly - Enemies of Promise (1938)
All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

What grape to keep its place in the sun, taught our ancestors to make wine?

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
Cyril Connolly - "The Unquiet Grave", 1945
Everything is a dangerous drug except reality, which is unendurable.
Cyril Connolly - Enemies of Promise (1938)
Those whom the Gods would destroy, they first call promising.

- Cyril Connolly