He felt old and miserable, going through life trying to peddle a personality of which people would not even accept a free sample. - Cyril Connolly

Beneath a mask of selfish tranquility nothing exists except bitterness and boredom. I am one of those whom suffering has made empty and frivolous: each night in my dreams I pull the scab off a wound; each day, vacuous and habit-ridden, I help it re-form.

Never will I make that extra effort to live according to reality which alone makes good writing possible: hence the manic-depressiveness of my style, — which is either bright, cruel and superficial; or pessimistic; moth-eaten with self-pity

He reduced everything to politics; he was also unalterably of the Left. His line may have been unpopular or unfashionable, but he followed it unhesitatingly; in fact it was an obsession. He could not blow his nose without moralising on conditions in the handkerchief industry.