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
Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph — green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree. – 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
As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers. – 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