Freedom from Angst

Everything is a dangerous drug except reality, which is unendurable. Happiness is in the imagination. What we perform is always inferior to what we imagine; yet day-dreaming brings guilt; there is no happiness except through freedom from Angst, and only creative work, communion with nature and helping others are Angst-free.

Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave (Hamish Hamilton, 1945) p. 28