Cyril Quotes & Sayings

It is after creation, in the elation of success, or the gloom of failure, that love becomes essential. — Cyril Connolly

frThe Spirit comes gently and makes himself known by his fragrance. He is not felt as a burden for God is light, very light. Rays of light and knowledge stream before him as the Spirit approaches. The Spirit comes with the tenderness of a true friend to save, to heal, to teach, to counsel, to strengthen, and to console. — Cyril Of Jerusalem

Today the function of the artist is to bring imagination to science and science to imagination, where they meet, in the myth. — Cyril Connolly

In my religion, there would be no exclusive doctrine; all would be love, poetry, and doubt. — Cyril Connolly

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. — Cyril Connolly

We love but once, for once only are we perfectly equipped for loving. — Cyril Connolly

By being silent he can do more than those who chatter. For he is in tune with the commandments as a harp is with its strings. — Cyril Charles Richardson

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

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

As two pieces of wax fused together make one so he who receives Holy Communion is so united with Christ that Christ is in him and he is in Christ. — Cyril Of Alexandria

I am a nationalist ... my native soil is the theatre. — Cyril Cusack

Neither harsh reviews, the contempt of equals nor the indifference of superiors can affect those who have once tapped the great heart of suffering humanity and found out what a goldmine it is. — Cyril Connolly

Friendships that last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from them. — Cyril Connolly

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] — Cyril Connolly

The very exercise of leadership fosters capacity for it. — Cyril Falls

There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another ... It is when we begin to hurt those whom we love that the guilt with which we are born becomes intolerable, and since all those whom we love intensely and continuously grow part of us, and since we hate ourselves in them, so we torture ourselves and them together. — Cyril Connolly

My background may be common, but I have specialized in elegance. — Cyril Ritchard

Back in the 1950s and '60s, J. M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan' - starring Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard - was regularly aired on network television during the Christmas season. I must have seen it four or five times and remember, in particular, Ritchard's gloriously camp interpretation of Captain Hook. — Michael Dirda

Scientists are human - they're as biased as any other group. But they do have one great advantage in that science is a self-correcting process. — Cyril Ponnamperuma

Leadership is particularly necessary to ensure ready acceptance of the unfamiliar and that which is contrary to tradition. — Cyril Falls

Marriage is the permanent conversation between two people who talk over everything and everyone until death breaks the record. — Cyril Connolly

Never will I make that extra effort to live according to reality which alone makes good writing possible: hence the manic-depressiveness of my style, - which is either bright, cruel and superficial; or pessimistic; moth-eaten with self-pity — Cyril Connolly

There is immunity in reading, immunity in formal society, in office routine, in the company of old friends and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. The past with its anguish will break through every defense-line of custom and habit; we must sleep and therefore we must dream. — Cyril Connolly

Our memories are card-indexes consulted and then put back in disorder by authorities whom we do not control. — Cyril Connolly

An author arrives at a good style when his language performs what is required of it without shyness. — Cyril Connolly

Streets of Paris, pray for me; beaches in the sun, pray for me; ghosts of the lemurs, intercede for me; plane-tree and laurel-rose, shade me; summer rain on quays of Toulon, wash me away. — Cyril Connolly

Boys do not grow up gradually. They move forward in spurts like the hands of clocks in railway stations. — Cyril Connolly

Attainment is a poor measure of capacity, and ignorance no proof of defect. — Cyril Burt

Longevity is the revenge of talent upon genius. — Cyril Connolly

Theatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French. — Cyril Cusack

Be still,25 and know that I am God, saith the Scripture. Excuse thyself from talking many idle words: neither backbite, nor lend a willing ear to backbiters; but rather be prompt to prayer. Shew in ascetic exercise that thy heart is nerved.26 Cleanse thy vessel, that thou mayest receive grace more abundantly. For though remission of sins is given equally to all, the communion of the Holy Ghost is bestowed in proportion to each man's faith. If thou hast laboured little, thou receivest little; but if thou hast wrought much, the reward is great. Thou art running for thyself, see to thine own interest. — Cyril Of Jerusalem

The only happy talkers are dandies who extract pleasure from the very perishability of their material and who would not be able to tolerate the isolation of all other forms of composition; for most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable; they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own, to dispense it in noises upon the air. — Cyril Connolly

Beneath a mask of selfish tranquility nothing exists except bitterness and boredom. — Cyril Connolly

Miserable Orpheus who, turning to lose his Eurydice, beholds her for the first time as well as the last. — Cyril Connolly

Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness. — Cyril Connolly

Approaching forty, I had a singular dream in which I almost grasped the meaning and understood the nature of what it is that wastes in wasted time. — Cyril Connolly

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. — Cyril Connolly

The man who is master of his passions is Reason's slave. — Cyril Connolly

For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act? — Cyril Connolly

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

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

M is for Marx
And clashing of classes
And movement of masses
And massing of asses. — Cyril Connolly

Cyril's main interest seems to have been in the relationship between Christ's human and divine natures, while Pulcheria's was in Mary herself. He may only have attained the support of the Empress insofar as his theological commitments overlapped with her desire to promote the cult of the Virgin Mary as a form of imperial civic religion. — Kate Cooper

The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest. — Cyril Connolly

Nearly half a century has passed since Watson proclaimed his manifesto. Today, apart from a few minor reservations, the vast majority of psychologists, both in this country and in America, still follow his lead. The result, as a cynical onlooker might be tempted to say, is that psychology, having first bargained away its soul and then gone out of its mind, seems now, as it faces an untimely end, to have lost all consciousness. — Cyril Burt

A mutually fulfilled sexual union between two people is the rarest sensation which life can provide. But it is not quite real. It stops when the telephone rings. Such a passion can be kept at its early strength only by adding to it either more and more unhappiness (jealousy, separation, doubt, renunciation), or more and more artificiality (drink, technique, stage-illusions). Whoever has missed this has never lived, who lives for it alone is but partly alive. — Cyril Connolly

When in doubt, choose greatness. — Cyril Connolly

A best-seller is the golden touch of mediocre talent. — Cyril Connolly

When even despair ceases to serve any creative purpose, then surely we are justified in suicide. For what better grounds for suicide can there be than to go on making the same series of false moves which invariably lead to the same disaster and to repeat a pattern without knowing why it is false or wherein lies the flaw? And yet to percieve that in ourselves revolves a cycle of activity which is certain to end in paralysis of the will, desertion, panic and despair - always to go on loving those who have ceased to love us, and who have quite lost all resemblance to the selves who we loved! Suicide is infectious; what if the agonies which suicide endure before they are driven to take their own life, the emotion of 'all is lost' - are infectious too? — Cyril Connolly

If the fence is strong enough I'll sit on it. — Cyril Smith

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. — Cyril Connolly

I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up. — Cyril Connolly

The wider our contemplation of creation, the grander is our conception of God. — Cyril Of Jerusalem

That is all the money in the world at my disposition." She dropped the stilted words into the court like pebbles into a calm pool, wrapping her strange dignity around her like a cloak. — Cyril Hare

Like water, we are truest to our nature in repose. — Cyril Connolly

How many books did Renoir write on how to paint? — Cyril Connolly

I have tried to explore the little talent I have for writing. — Cyril Cusack

The artist secretes nostalgia around life. — Cyril Connolly

Failure on the other hand is infectious. The world is full of charming failures (for all charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others) and unless the writer is quite ruthless with these amiable footlers, they will drag him down with them. — Cyril Connolly

Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of life. — Cyril Connolly

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

The actor has a constant problem of personal identity. — Cyril Cusack

Acting is the most brotherly and sisterly profession in the world. — Cyril Cusack

Why is the Rockefeller Commission so Single-Minded About a Lone Assassin in the Kennedy Case?, — Cyril Wecht

A drunkard clasp his teeth and not undo 'em,
To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em. — Cyril Tourneur

Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you. — Cyril Connolly

We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament, and embrace it with passion. — Cyril Connolly

Most of the beauty of women evaporates when they achieve domestic happiness at the price of their independence. — Cyril Connolly

In the year 415, the woman scientist Hypatia, head of the legendary Alexandria library, was beaten to death by Christian monks who considered her a pagan. The leader of the monks, Cyril, was canonized a saint. — James A. Haught

In my religion all believers would stop work at sundown and have a drink together. — Cyril Connolly

A life based on reason will always require to be balanced by an occasional bout of violent and irrational emotion, for the instinctual drives must be satisfied. — Cyril Connolly

Is it possible to love any human being without being torn limb from limb? — Cyril Connolly

So long as large armies go to battle, so long will the air arm remain their spearhead. — Cyril Falls

Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual. — Cyril Connolly

The headmistress was an able instructress in French and history and we learned with her as fast as fear could teach us. — Cyril Connolly

The detective story itself is in a dilemma. It is a vein which is in danger of being worked out, the demand is constant, the powers of supply variable, and the reader, with each one he absorbs, grows a little more sophisticated and harder to please, while the novelist, after each one he writes, becomes a little more exhausted. — Cyril Connolly

Someone - Cyril Connolly? Ezra Pound? - once said that anything that can be read twice is literature; I would say that anything that bears saying twice is quotable. — Joseph Epstein

The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick peek over a common lamp-post. — Cyril Connolly

When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent and ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy years life-span only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well? — Cyril Connolly

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

Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action. — Cyril Connolly

My dear, I could hardly keep still in my chair. I wanted to dash out of the house and leap in a taxi and say, "Take me to Charles's unhealthy pictures." Well, I went, but the gallery after luncheon was so full of absurd women in the sort of hats they should be made to eat, that I rested a little
I rested here with Cyril and Tom and these saucy boys. Then I came back at the unfashionable time of five o'clock, all agog, my dear; and what did I find? I found, my dear, a very naughty and very successful practical joke. It reminded me of dear Sebastian when he liked so much to dress up in false whiskers. It was charm again, my dear, simple, creamy English charm, playing tigers. — Evelyn Waugh

Men forsook God, and made carved images of men. Since therefore an image of man was falsely worshipped as God, God became truly Man, that the falsehood might be done away. — Cyril Of Jerusalem

The river of truth is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between them, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the mainstream. — Cyril Connolly

It is closing time in the gardens of the West. — Cyril Connolly

Soon I find myself squatting on the floor. I am still striking my face; not with my fists this time, but with wide-open hands. I am slapping myself. The sounds I make when my palms meet my cheeks are like an unrelenting round of applause. I am clapping myself. Or clapping for myself. I start to giggle.

All the voices are receding now. I am no longer filled with rage or disappointment. I clap and clap and simply cannot stop. — Cyril Wong

No education is worth having that does not teach the lesson of concentration on a task, however unattractive. These lessons, if not learnt early, will be learnt, if at all, with pain and grief in later life. — Cyril Connolly

Dining out is a vice, a dissipation of spirit punished by remorse. We eat, drink, and talk a little too much, abuse all our friends, belch out our literary preferences and are egged on by accomplices in the audience to acts of mental exhibitionism. Such evenings cannot fail to diminish those who take part in them. They end on Monkey Hill. — Cyril Connolly

Young writers if they are to mature require a period of between three and seven years in which to live down their promise. Promise is like the mediaeval hangman who after settling the noose, pushed his victim off the platform and jumped on his back, his weight acting a drop while his jockeying arms prevented the unfortunate from loosening the rope. When he judged him dead he dropped to the ground. — Cyril Connolly

Reading the book now means that one can, if one wants, play Fantasy Literature
match writers off against each other and see who won over the long haul. Faulkner or Henry Green? I reckon the surprise champ was P.G. Wodehouse, as elegant and resourceful a prose stylist as anyone held up for our inspection here ... he has turned out to be as enduring as anyone apart from Orwell. Jokes, you see. People do like jokes.
(Hornby's thoughts after reading "Enemies of Promise" by Cyril Connolly) — Nick Hornby

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. — Cyril Connolly

Doing is overrated, and success undesirable, but the bitterness of failure even more so. — Cyril Connolly

British physician Cyril Donnison in 1938 in Civilization and Disease, hypertension was already among the best-documented examples of a disease that seemed specific to Western societies and the more affluent social classes elsewhere. — Gary Taubes

It is the teacher's and the lawmaker's responsibility to allow the child to express his feelings about growing up. What happens to a child at that particular age? It is a terribly vulnerable time, and if we provide youths with an environment to
be free, to be expressive, without embarrassing them, without shaming them, they would grow up to be healthy, compassionate adults. Instead, if we force them to "belong, belong, belong," they all become repressed. There is a complete absence of options. — Cyril Wong

The shock, for an intelligent writer, of discovering for the first time that there are people younger than himself who think him stupid is severe. — Cyril Connolly

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

In the sex war, thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female. — Cyril Connolly

Youth is a period of missed opportunities. — Cyril Connolly

Imagination is nostalgia for the past, the absent it is the liquid solution in which art develops the snapshot of reality. — Cyril Connolly

Why do ants alone have parasites whose intoxicating moistures they drink and for whom they will sacrifice even their young? Because as they are the most highly socialized of insects, so their lives are the most intolerable. — Cyril Connolly