Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connollywas a literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizonand wrote Enemies of Promise, which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of fiction that he had aspired to be in his youth...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth10 September 1903
life fear publishing-books
As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.
book writing air
I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.
book party writing
There are only three things which make life worth living: to be writing a tolerably good book, to be in a dinner party of six, and to be traveling south with someone whom your conscience permits you to love.
birthday book thirty
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.
country nature book
It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book.
book writing paint
How many books did Renoir write on how to paint?
book people career-success
The books I haven't written are better than the books other people have.
book learn meeting teach worth
No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, - something more than we could learn ourselves, from a book
becomes books clearer function produce task true writer
The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence.
weed lying flower
A stone lies in a river; a piece of wood is jammed against it; dead leaves, drifting logs, and branches caked with mud collect; weeds settle there, and soon birds have made a nest and are feeding their young among the blossoming water plants. Then the river rises and the earth is washed away. The birds depart, the flowers wither, the branches are dislodged and drift downward; no trace is left of the floating island but a stone submerged by the water; - such is our personality.
call gods whom
Those whom the Gods would destroy, they first call promising.
art grasped journalism literature
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once
artist closing gardens judged quality resonance solitude time west
It is closing time in the gardens of the West and from now on an artist will be judged only by the resonance of his solitude or the quality of his despair.
enjoy public virtues
The ape-like virtues without which no one can enjoy a public school.