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
Yet friendship, I believe, is essential to intellectuals. It is probably the growth hormone the mind requires as it begins its activity… — Mary McCarthy Activity Copy Share Image
Any sizeable Portuguese town looks like a superstitious bride's finery - something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. — Mary McCarthy Blue 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 Believe Copy Share Image
“She considered [her] life, which had not been a life but only a sort of greeting, a Hello There.” — Mary McCarthy Life 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
Making love, we are all more alike than we are when we are talking or acting. — Mary McCarthy Acting 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
The only form of action open to a child is to break something or strike someone, its mother or another child; it… — Mary McCarthy Action 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 Aggressive Copy Share Image
I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently inhibited about the things that other women are inhibited about for me. They feel that you've given… — Mary McCarthy Given Copy Share Image
Be truthful... and pay attention. I would also recommend the avoidance of credit cards. — Mary McCarthy Advice Copy Share Image
All ideas advanced to deal with the Florentine noise problem, the Florentine traffic problem, are Utopian, and nobody believes in them, just… — Mary McCarthy Believe Copy Share Image
The idea of Macbeth as a conscience-torm ented man is a platitude as false as Macbeth himself. Macbeth has no conscience. His… — Mary McCarthy Concern Copy Share Image
most people did not care to be taught what they did not already know; it made them feel ignorant. — Mary McCarthy Care Copy Share Image
What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake. — Mary McCarthy Cake Copy Share Image
Illiteracy at the poverty level (mainly a matter of bad grammar) does not alarm me nearly as much as the illiteracy of… — Mary McCarthy Alarms Copy Share Image
On the wall of our life together hung a gun waiting to be fired in the final act. — Mary McCarthy Finals Copy Share Image
The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of… — Mary McCarthy American life Copy Share Image
Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot understand (seeing… — Mary McCarthy Forgiveness Copy Share Image
We are a nation of 20 million bathrooms, with a humanist in every tub. — Mary McCarthy Bathroom Copy Share Image
We all live in suspense from day to day; in other words, you are the hero of your own story. — Mary McCarthy Day to day Copy Share Image
Europeans used to say Americans were puritanical. Then they discovered that we were not puritans. So now they say that we are… — Mary McCarthy Obsessed Copy Share Image
