Quotes by Cyril Connolly

A great writer creates a world of his own and his readers are proud to live in it. A lesser writer may entice them in for a moment, but soon he will watch them filing out.

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

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.

A ceremony of self-wastage - good talkers are miserable they know that they have betrayed themselves that they have taken material which should have a life of its own to disperse it in noises upon the air.

Optimism and self-pity are the positive and negative poles of modern cowardice.

All charming people have something to conceal usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

The one way to get thin is to re-establish a purpose in life.

The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the others dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him.

Greed like the love of comfort is a kind of fear.

The secret of happiness ... is to be in harmony with existence to be always calm always lucid always willing to be joined to the universe without being more conscious of it than an idiot to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.

Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.

Hate is the consequence of fear we fear something before we hate it a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noise.

We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice journalism what will be grasped at once.

Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.

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.

A writer who takes up journalism abandons the slow tempo of literature for a faster one and the change will do him harm. By degrees the flippancy of journalism will become a habit and the pleasure of being paid on the nail and more especially of being praised on the nail grow indispensable.

Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we learn to walk.

Most people do not believe in anything very much and our greatest poetry is given to us by those that do.

Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.