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Melancholy and remorse form the deep leaden keel which enables us to sail into the wind of reality; we run aground sooner than the flat-bottomed pleasure-lovers but we venture out in weather that would sink them and we choose our direction.

— Cyril Connolly The Unquiet Grave (1944)

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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.