We all live in suspense from day to day; in other words, you are the hero of your own story. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Old money is fully as moronic as new money but it has inherited an appearance of cultivation. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer. — Mary McCarthy Authority Copy Share Image
Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism. — Mary McCarthy Bureaucracy Copy Share Image
There are no new truths, but only truths that have not been recognized by those who have perceived them without noticing. — Mary McCarthy Happiness Copy Share Image
Driving a car, you are in danger of killing; walking or standing, of being killed. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof. — Mary McCarthy America Copy Share Image
If someone tells you he is going to make a realistic decision, you immediately understand that he is going to do something… — Mary McCarthy Choice Copy Share Image
The suspense in a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist himself, who is intensely curious too about… — Mary McCarthy Books Copy Share Image
I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you're older, I think,… — Mary McCarthy Adventure Copy Share Image
Venice is the worlds unconscious: a misers glittering hoard, guarded by a Beast whose eyes are made of white agate, and by… — Mary McCarthy Beast Copy Share Image
The fact is that gardening, more than most of our other activities except sometimes love-making, confronts us with the inexplicable. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Life is a system of recurrent pairs, the poison and the antidote being eternally packaged together by some considerate heavenly druggist. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof — Mary McCarthy America Copy Share Image
... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a… — Mary McCarthy America Copy Share Image
Our language, once homely and colloquial, seeks to aggrandize our meanest activities with polysyllabic terms or it retreats from frankness into a… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
When you have committed an action that you cannot bear to think about, that causes you to writhe in retrospect, do not… — Mary McCarthy Action Copy Share Image
“She felt really quite unequal to the tedious process of reconciliation which, in view of the fact that she was sorry, seemed… — Mary McCarthy Habits Copy Share Image
The breakdown of our language, evident in the misuse, i.e., the misunderstanding of nouns and adjectives, is most grave, though perhaps not… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you're older, I think,… — Mary McCarthy Adventure Copy Share Image
The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is the fact that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic… — Mary McCarthy American life Copy Share Image
it came to me, as we sat there, glumly ordering lunch, that for extremely stupid people anti-Semitism was a form of intellectuality,… — Mary McCarthy Ability Copy Share Image
The strongest argument for the unmaterialistic character of American life is . . . that we tolerate conditions that are, from a… — Mary McCarthy American life Copy Share Image
In verity we are the poor. This humanity we would claim for ourselves is the legacy, not only of the Enlightenment, but… — Mary McCarthy Absence Copy Share Image
What's the use of falling in love if you both remain inertly as you were? — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
“She considered [her] life, which had not been a life but only a sort of greeting, a Hello There.” — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Life for the European is a career; for the American it is a hazard. — Mary McCarthy Career Copy Share Image
It [Socialism] was a kind of political hockey played by big, gaunt, dyspeptic girls in pants. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Anybody who has ever tried to rectify an injustice or set a record straight comes to feel that he is going mad. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character. — Mary McCarthy Absence Copy Share Image
The desire to believe the best of people is a prerequisite for intercourse with strangers; suspicion is reserved for friends. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
“Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’." (on Lillian Hellman)” — Mary McCarthy Authors Copy Share Image
The passion for fact in a raw state is a peculiarity of the novelist. — Mary McCarthy Facts Copy Share Image
love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel. — Mary McCarthy Books Copy Share Image
Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
From what I have seen, I am driven to the conclusion that religion is only good for good people. — Mary McCarthy Conclusion Copy Share Image
A good deal of education consists of unlearning-the breaking of bad habits as with a tennis serve. — Mary McCarthy Bad habit Copy Share Image
You know what my favourite quotation is?.. It's from Chaucer... Criseyde says it, "I am myne owene woman, wel at ese." — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Maybe any action becomes cowardly once you stop to reason about it. — Mary McCarthy Action Copy Share Image
![“She considered [her] life, which had not been a life but only a sort of greeting, a Hello There.” quote by Mary McCarthy](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/354/mary-mccarthy-2691_considered_she-considered-her-life-which-had-not-be_53594.png)
![“It [Socialism] was a kind of political hockey played by big, gaunt, dyspeptic girls in pants.” quote by Mary McCarthy](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/82e/mary-mccarthy-2691_bigs_it-socialism-was-a-kind-of-political-hoc_807114.png)
