Cyril Connolly Quotes about Literature

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

While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.

No taste is so acquired as that for someone else's quality of mind.

Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present.

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

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

When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves, then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.

Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of charm.

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

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

Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature.

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.

Nothing dates like hate and in literature a little of it goes a very long way.

When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.