To be disesteemed by people you don't have much respect for is not the worst fate. — Mary McCarthy Fate Copy Share Image
My occupational hazard is that I can't help plagiarizing from real life. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children. — Mary McCarthy Children Copy Share Image
We are a nation of 20 million bathrooms, with a humanist in every tub. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
The present can try to bury the past, an operation that is most atrocious when it is most successful. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Others are to us like the characters in fiction, eternal and incorrigible; the surprises they give us turn out in the end… — Mary McCarthy Character Copy Share Image
The consumer today is the victim of the manufacturer who launches on him a regiment of products for which he must make… — Mary McCarthy Advertising Copy Share Image
Feminism is ridiculous. Feminists are silly idealists who want to be on top. There is no real equality in sexual relationships -… — Mary McCarthy Feminism Copy Share Image
Morality did not keep well; it required stable conditions; it was costly; it was subject to variations, and the market for it… — Mary McCarthy Character Copy Share Image
“He was never quite certain what he thought about anything until he had tested his opinion for seaworthiness in the course of… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
The erotic element always present in fashion, the kiss of loving labor on the body, is now overtly expressed by language. Belts… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
If someone tells you he is going to make a ealistic decision, you immediately understand that he has resolved to do something… — Mary McCarthy Choice Copy Share Image
Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother's nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
A politician or political thinker who calls himself a political realist is usually boasting that he sees politics, so to speak, in… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
It really seems to me sometimes that the only hope is space. That is to say, perhaps the most energeticin a bad… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted. Spicy court-memoirs, the lives of gallant ladies, recollections of an ex-nun,… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Leisure was the sine qua non of the full Renaissance. The feudal nobility, having lost its martial function, sought diversion all over… — Mary McCarthy Art Copy Share Image
It is impossible, except for theologians, to conceive of a world-wide scandal or a universe-wide scandal; the proof of this is the… — Mary McCarthy Bombs Copy Share Image
The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass ... What is implied in these nuances… — Mary McCarthy Character education Copy Share Image
The American, if he has a spark of national feeling, will be humiliated by the very prospect of a foreigner's visit to… — Mary McCarthy Things happen for a reason Copy Share Image
If you want to be your own master ... always be surprised by evil; never anticipate it. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
You musn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Making love, we are all more alike than we are when we are talking or acting. — Mary McCarthy Acting Copy Share Image
Be truthful... and pay attention. I would also recommend the avoidance of credit cards. — Mary McCarthy Advice Copy Share Image
The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor is toil that never finishes, toil that has… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
With extramarital courtship, the deception was prolonged where it had been ephemeral, necessary where it had been frivolous, conspiratorial where it had… — Mary McCarthy Courtship Copy Share Image
America is indeed a revelation, though not quite the one that was planned. Given a clean slate, man, it was hoped, would… — Mary McCarthy America Copy Share Image
Proscription, martial law, the billeting of the rude troops, the tax collector, the unjust judge, anything at all, is sweeter than responsibility. — Mary McCarthy Collectors Copy Share Image
What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake. If you're interested in the cake, you… — 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
this is the spirit of the enchantment under which Venice lies, pearly and roseate, like the Sleeping Beauty, changeless throughout the centuries,… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
The comic element is the incorrigible element in every human being; the capacity to learn, from experience or instruction, is what is… — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
The return to a favorite novel is generally tied up with changes in oneself that must be counted as improvements, but have… — Mary McCarthy Book Copy Share Image
The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist, who is intensely curious about what will… — Mary McCarthy Books Copy Share Image
In moments of despair, we look on ourselves lead-enly as objects; we see ourselves, our lives, as someone else might see them… — Mary McCarthy Despair Copy Share Image
The rationalist mind has always had its doubts about Venice. The watery city receives a dry inspection, as though it were a… — Mary McCarthy Cities Copy Share Image
