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I shall christen this style the Mandarin, since it is beloved by literary pundits, by those who would make the written word as unlike as possible to the spoken one. It is the style of all those writers whose tendency is to make their language convey more than they mean or more than they feel, it is the style of most artists and all humbugs.

— 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)

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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.