In The Unquiet Grave Connolly writes: "Approaching forty, sense of total failure:.. 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." .
Kenneth Tynan, writing in the March 1954 Harper's Bazaar, praised Connolly's style as 'one of the most glittering of English literary possessions.' .