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
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
Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action. – Cyril Connolly
We make a mistake forsaking England and moving out into the periphery of life. After all, Taormina, Ceylon, Africa, America — as far as we go, they are only the negation of what we ourselves stand for and are: and were rather like Jonahs running away from the place we belong. – D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence