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Cyril Connolly Quotes

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"Youth is a period of missed opportunities."

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

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

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

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

"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 artist is a member of the leisured classes who cannot pay for his leisure."

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

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

"A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he set out, will have condemned himself to second-hand thoughts and to second-rate friends."

"We love but once, for once only are we perfectly equipped for loving."

"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."

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

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

"Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall."

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