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

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

- Cyril Connolly

Youth is a period of missed opportunities.

- Cyril Connolly

The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence.

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

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

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

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

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.

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly

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

- Cyril Connolly