Mary McCarthy Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• The desire to believe the best of people is a prerequisite for intercourse with strangers; suspicion is reserved for friends.

  Mary McCarthy

  Friends, Believe, People

  Mary McCarthy (1981). “The hounds of summer and other stories: Mary McCarthy's short fiction”

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• The fact is that gardening, more than most of our other activities except sometimes love-making, confronts us with the inexplicable.

  Mary McCarthy

  Gardening, Facts, Sometimes

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• The theater is the only branch of art much cared for by people of wealth; like canasta, it does away with the brother of talk after dinner.

  Mary McCarthy

  Art, Brother, People

  "Up the Ladder from Charm to Vogue". Mary McCarthy, The Reporter Magazine, July 1950.

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• Morality did not keep well; it required stable conditions; it was costly; it was subject to variations, and the market for it was uncertain.

  Mary McCarthy

  Variation, Morality, Uncertain

  Mary McCarthy (2013). “The Oasis: A Novel”, p.93, Melville House

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• Maybe any action becomes cowardly once you stop to reason about it.

  Mary McCarthy

  Action, Reason, Cowardice

  Mary McCarthy (2017). “Mary McCarthy: Novels 1963-1979”, p.409, Library of America

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• If one means by style the voice, the irreducible and always recognizable and alive thing, then of course style is really everything.

  Mary McCarthy

  Mean, Voice, Style

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• As subjects, we all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story. We cannot believe that it is finished, that we are 'finished,' even though we may say so; we expect another chapter, another installment, tomorrow or next week.

  Mary McCarthy

  Believe, Hero, Next Week

  Mary McCarthy (1964). “The Humanist in the Bathtub”

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• The comic element is the incorrigible element in every human being; the capacity to learn, from experience or instruction, is what is forbidden to all comic creations and to what is comic in you and me.

  Mary McCarthy

  Elements, Comedy, Creation

  Mary McCarthy (1964). “The Humanist in the Bathtub”

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• When an American heiress wants to buy a man, she at once crosses the Atlantic. The only really materialistic people I have ever met have been Europeans.

  Mary McCarthy

  Men, People, Literature

  On the Contrary (1961) "America the Beautiful"

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• Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished, or if it does, as in the case of the tilled field, this product of human activity requires still more labor, incessant, tireless labor, to maintain its identity as a 'work' of man.

  Mary McCarthy

  Men, Identity, Doe

  Mary McCarthy (1961). “On the contrary”, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy

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• it came to me, as we sat there, glumly ordering lunch, that for extremely stupid people anti-Semitism was a form of intellectuality, the sole form of intellectuality of which they were capable. It represented, in a rudimentary way, the ability to make categories, to generalize.

  Mary McCarthy

  Stupid, Lunch, People

  Mary McCarthy (1961). “On the contrary”, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy

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• ...the tourist Venice is Venice.

  Mary McCarthy

  Venice, Tourists

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• Venice is the worlds unconscious: a misers glittering hoard, guarded by a Beast whose eyes are made of white agate, and by a saint who is really a prince who has just slain a dragon.

  Mary McCarthy

  Eye, Dragons, White

  Mary McCarthy (1956). “Venice observed”

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• The rationalist mind has always had its doubts about Venice. The watery city receives a dry inspection, as though it were a myth for the credulous- poets and honeymooners.

  Mary McCarthy

  Cities, Venice, Doubt

  Mary McCarthy (1956). “Venice observed”

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• love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.

  Mary McCarthy

  Passion, Ordinary, Common

  Mary McCarthy (2002). “A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays”, New York Review of Books

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• The passion for fact in a raw state is a peculiarity of the novelist.

  Mary McCarthy

  Passion, Novelists, Facts

  Mary McCarthy (1964). “The Humanist in the Bathtub”

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• Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

  Mary McCarthy

  Freedom, Liberty, Literature

  Mary McCarthy (1961). “On the contrary”, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy

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• A society person who is enthusiastic about modern painting or Truman Capote is already half a traitor to his class. It is middle-class people who, quite mistakenly, imagine that a lively pursuit of the latest in reading and painting will advance their status in the world.

  Mary McCarthy

  Pain, Reading, Class

  Mary McCarthy (2002). “A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays”, New York Review of Books

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• In morals as in politics anarchy is not for the weak.

  Mary McCarthy

  Anarchy, Moral, Weak

  Mary McCarthy (1975). “The company she keeps”, Not Avail

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• Venice, as a city, was a foundling, floating upon the waters like Moses in his basket among the bulrushes.

  Mary McCarthy

  Cities, Venice, Water

  Mary McCarthy (1956). “Venice observed”

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• Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted. Spicy court-memoirs, the lives of gallant ladies, recollections of an ex-nun, a monk's confession, an atheist's repentance, true-to-life accounts of prostitution and bastardy gave our ancestors a penny peep into the forbidden room.

  Mary McCarthy

  Atheist, Eye, True Life

  Mary McCarthy (2002). “A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays”, New York Review of Books

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• All dramatic realism is somewhat sadistic; an audience is persuaded to watch something that makes it uncomfortable and from which no relief is offered - no laughter, no tears, no purgation.

  Mary McCarthy

  Laughter, Tears, Relief

  Mary McCarthy (2002). “A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays”, New York Review of Books

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• The Crucifixion and other historical precedents notwithstanding, many of us still believe that outstanding goodness is a kind of armor, that virtue, seen plain and bare, gives pause to criminality. But perhaps it is the other way around.

  Mary McCarthy

  Believe, Giving, Historical

  Mary McCarthy (1961). “On the contrary”, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy

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• With extramarital courtship, the deception was prolonged where it had been ephemeral, necessary where it had been frivolous, conspiratorial where it had been lonely.

  Mary McCarthy

  Lonely, Deception, Ephemeral

  Mary McCarthy (1975). “The company she keeps”, Not Avail

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• The only form of action open to a child is to break something or strike someone, its mother or another child; it cannot cause things to happen in the world.

  Mary McCarthy

  Mother, Children, Childhood

  Mary McCarthy (1964). “The humanist in the bathtub”

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