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… — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next. — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once. — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
Beautiful women must think about their beauty as capitalists think about their investments or politicians about their majorities; it is all they have to… — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
We cannot be happy until we can love ourselves without egotism and our friends without tyranny. — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
What grape to keep its place in the sun, taught our ancestors to make wine? — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
“Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice.” — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
“Our memories are card-indexes consulted and then put back in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.” — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the… — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
Failure on the other hand is infectious. The world is full of charming failures (for all charming people have something to conceal, usually their… — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
There is no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hall — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence. — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
