Cyril Connolly

“In the sex war, thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female.”

“The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence.”

“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.”

“The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.”

“The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick peek over a common lamp-post.”

“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.”

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

“Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster.”

“As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.”

“Today the function of the artist is to bring imagination to science and science to imagination, where they meet, in the myth.”

“The dread of lonliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.”

“Two fears alternate in marriage, of loneliness and of bondage. The dread of loneliness being keener than the fear of bondage, we get married. For one person who fears being thus tied there are four who dread being set free. Yet the love of liberty is a noble passion and one to which most married people secretly aspire, -- in moments when they are not neurotically dependent -- but by then it is too late; the ox does not become a bull, not the hen a falcon.The fear of loneliness can be overcome, for it springs from weakness; human beings are intended to be free, and to be free is to be lonely, but the fear of bondage is the apprehension of a real danger, and so I find it all the more pathetic to watch young men and beautiful girls taking refuge in marriage from an imaginary danger, a sad loss to their friends ad a sore trial to each other. First love is the one most worth having, yet the best marriage is often the second, for we should marry only when the desire for freedom be spent; not till then does a man know whether he is the kind who can settle down. The most tragic breakings-up are of those couples who have married young and who have enjoyed seven years of happiness, after which the banked fires of passion and independence explode -- and without knowing why, for they still love each other, they set about accomplishing their common destruction.”

“Like water, we are truest to our nature in repose.”

“The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.”

“Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness.”

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

“Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.”

“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.”

“No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.”

“Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.”