Mary MacLane Quotes

Quotes about:

• I am not good. I am not virtuous. I am not sympathetic. I am not generous. I am merely and above all a creature of intense passionate feeling. I feel—everything. It is my genius. It burns me like fire.

  Mary MacLane

  Fire, Feelings, Genius

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler”, p.116, Petrarca Press

  45 Copy quote

• I do not see any beauty in self-restraint.

  Mary MacLane

  Self, Restraint, Self Restraint

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I Await the Devil's Coming: Annotated & Unexpurgated”, p.128, Petrarca Press

  15 Copy quote

• I can think of nothing in the world like the utter littleness, the paltriness, the contemptibleness, the degradation, of the woman who is tied down under a roof with a man who is really nothing to her; who wears the man’s name, who bears the man’s children — who plays the virtuous woman. . . . May I never, I say, become that abnormal merciless animal, that deformed monstrosity — a virtuous woman.

  Mary MacLane

  Children, Animal, Men

  16 Copy quote

• I began to be a woman at twelve, or more properly, a genius.

  Mary MacLane

  Twelve, Genius

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I Await the Devil's Coming: The Story of Mary MacLane”, p.94, The Floating Press

  4 Copy quote

• I want to write such things as compel the admiring acclamation of the world at large, such things as are written but once in years, things subtle but distinctly different from the books written every day.

  Mary MacLane

  Book, Writing, Years

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader”, p.24, Petrarca Press

  23 Copy quote

• People say of me, 'She's peculiar.' They do not understand me. If they did they would say so oftener and with emphasis.

  Mary MacLane

  People, Peculiar, Emphasis

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler”, p.83, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

• May I never, I say, become that abnormal, merciless animal, that deformed monstrosity - a virtuous woman.

  Mary MacLane

  Animal, Abnormal, May

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler”, p.38, Petrarca Press

  5 Copy quote

• I never give my real self. I have a hundred sides, and I turn first one way and then the other. I am playing a deep game. I have a number of strong cards up my sleeve. I have never been myself, excepting to two friends.

  Mary MacLane

  Strong, Real, Self

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler”, p.122, Petrarca Press

  7 Copy quote

• Genius of a kind has always been with me; an empty heart that has taken on a certain wooden quality; an excellent, strong woman's body and a pitiably starved soul.

  Mary MacLane

  Strong Women, Taken, Heart

  7 Copy quote

• I was born to be alone, and I always shall be but now I want to be.

  Mary MacLane

  Want, Born

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler”, p.121, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

• I have read of women who have been strongly, grandly brave. Sometimes I have dreamed that I might be brave. The possibilities of this life are magnificent.

  Mary MacLane

  Brave, Might, Sometimes

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I Await the Devil's Coming: Annotated & Unexpurgated”, p.82, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

• The highest thing one can do in literature is to succeed in saying that thing which one meant to say. There is nothing better than that - to make the world see your thoughts as you see them.

  Mary MacLane

  Literature, World, Succeed

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I Await the Devil's Coming: Annotated & Unexpurgated”, p.46, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

• The world is like a little marsh filled with mint and white hawthorn.

  Mary MacLane

  White, World, Littles

  Mary MacLane (2013). “I Await the Devil's Coming”, p.14, Melville House

  12 Copy quote

• However great one's gift of language may be, there is always something that one cannot tell.

  Mary MacLane

  May, Speech, Language

  4 Copy quote

• I want to live quietly.

  Mary MacLane

  Want, Quiet

  4 Copy quote

• A genius who does not know that he is a genius is no genius.

  Mary MacLane

  Doe, Genius, Knows

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler”, p.104, Petrarca Press

  7 Copy quote

• I am lithe, but fragile from constant involuntary self-analysis.

  Mary MacLane

  Self, Analysis, Constant

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I, Mary MacLane: A Diary of Human Days”, p.20, The Floating Press

  7 Copy quote

• I am a genius. Then it amused me to keep saying so, but now it does not. I expected to be happy sometime. Now I know I shall never be.

  Mary MacLane

  Doe, Genius, Expected

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I Await the Devil's Coming: Annotated & Unexpurgated”, p.125, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

• Fame is indeed beautiful and benign and gentle and satisfying, but happiness is something at once tender and brilliant beyond all things.

  Mary MacLane

  Beautiful, Brilliant, Fame

  8 Copy quote

• I consider calmly the question of how much evil I should need to kill off my finer feelings.

  Mary MacLane

  Evil, Feelings, Needs

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader”, p.101, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

• Well, if I am not vulgar, neither is my book. I wrote myself. Suggestiveness is always vulgar. But truth never. My book is not even remotely suggestive. I call things by their names. That is all.

  Mary MacLane

  Book, Names, Vulgar

  4 Copy quote

• I would rather be a fairly happy wife and mother.

  Mary MacLane

  Mother, Wife, Wives And Mothers

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader”, p.129, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

• Genius, apart from natural sensitiveness, is prone equally to unreasoning joy and to bitterest morbidness.

  Mary MacLane

  Joy, Genius, Natural

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I Await the Devil's Coming: The Story of Mary MacLane”, p.63, The Floating Press

  4 Copy quote

• But in my life, in my personality, there is an essence of falseness and insincerity. A thin, fine vapor of fraud hangs always over me and dampens and injures some things in me that I value.

  Mary MacLane

  Essence, Personality, Vapor

  Mary MacLane (2014). “I Await the Devil's Coming: Annotated & Unexpurgated”, p.59, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

• When a man and a woman love one another that is enough. That is marriage. A religious rite is superfluous. And if the man and woman live together without the love, no ceremony in the world can make it a marriage.

  Mary MacLane

  Marriage, Religious, Men

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler”, p.38, Petrarca Press

  4 Copy quote

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