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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 Enemies of Promise (1938)

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More quotes by Cyril Connolly

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learnt to walk.

The Unquiet Grave (1944)

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

Enemies of Promise (1938)

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once, and they require separate techniques.

Enemies of Promise (1938)

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

The Unquiet Grave (1944)

All Cyril Connolly quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Cyril Connolly (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.