239 Quotes by Cyril Connolly

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." - "Meglio scrivere per se stessi e non avere un pubblico piuttosto che scrivere per gli altri e non essere se stessi".

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."[The New Statesman, February 25, 1933]

When I write after dark the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose.

Youth is a period of missed opportunities.

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.

It is significant comment on the victory of science over magic that were someone to say ‘if I put this pill in your beer it will explode,’ we might believe them; but were they to cry ‘if I pronounce this spell over your beer it will go flat,’ we should remain incredulous and Paracelsus, the Alchemists, Aleister Crowley and all the Magi have lived in vain. Yet when I read science I turn magical; when I study magic, scientific.

We fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noises.

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