Mary McCarthy Quotes

Quotes about:

• We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story.

  Mary McCarthy

  Life, Hero, Positive Attitude

  "Characters in Fiction". Partisan Review, March/April 1961.

  80 Copy quote

• The present can try to bury the past, an operation that is most atrocious when it is most successful.

  Mary McCarthy

  Successful, Past, Trying

  4 Copy quote

• Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.

  Mary McCarthy

  Liberty, Libertarian, Modern

  "The Vita Activa". The New Yorker, October 18, 1958.

  19 Copy quote

• Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the."

  Mary McCarthy

  Funny, Lying, Writing

  Dick Cavett Show (television program), Jan. 1980.

  20 Copy quote

• Once the state is looked upon as the source of rights, rather than their bound protector, freedom becomes conditional on the pleasure of the state.

  Mary McCarthy

  Rights, Pleasure, States

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

  8 Copy quote

• From what I have seen, I am driven to the conclusion that religion is only good for good people.

  Mary McCarthy

  People, Good People, Driven

  Mary McCarthy (2011). “Memories Of A Catholic Girlhood”, p.15, Random House

  11 Copy quote

• If someone tells you he is going to make a 'realistic decision', you immediately understand that he has resolved to do something bad.

  Mary McCarthy

  Decision, Bad Decision, Realistic

  On the Contrary "The American Realist Playwrights" (1961)

  18 Copy quote

• In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

  Mary McCarthy

  Military, Politics, Retreat

  "Vietnam". Book by Mary McCarthy, 1967.

  8 Copy quote

• We are the hero of our own story.

  Mary McCarthy

  Inspirational Life, Self Esteem, Hero

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

  17 Copy quote

• Scratch a socialist and you find a snob.

  Mary McCarthy

  Scratches, Socialism, Socialist

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

  5 Copy quote

• Feminism is ridiculous. Feminists are silly idealists who want to be on top. There is no real equality in sexual relationships - someone always wins.

  Mary McCarthy

  Real, Silly, Winning

  Source: therumpus.net

  10 Copy quote

• You mustn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.

  Mary McCarthy

  Best Love, Sex, Force

  The Group ch. 2 (1954)

  11 Copy quote

• most people did not care to be taught what they did not already know; it made them feel ignorant.

  Mary McCarthy

  Education, Learning, People

  Mary McCarthy (2017). “Mary McCarthy: Novels 1963-1979”, p.397, Library of America

  13 Copy quote

• When you have committed an action that you cannot bear to think about, that causes you to writhe in retrospect, do not seek to evade the memory: make yourself relive it, confront it repeatedly over and over, till finally, you will discover, through sheer repetition it loses its power to pain you. It works, I guarantee you, this sure-fire guilt-eradicator, like a homeopathic medicine - like in small doses applied to like. It works, but I am not sure that it is a good thing.

  Mary McCarthy

  Pain, Memories, Thinking

  "How I Grew". Book by Mary McCarthy, 1987.

  5 Copy quote

• You know what my favourite quotation is?.. It's from Chaucer... Criseyde says it, "I am myne owene woman, wel at ese."

  Mary McCarthy

  Favourite, Chaucer, Knows

  "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt". Short story by ary McCarthy, first published in "Partisan Review", 1941.

  15 Copy quote

• The relation between life and literature - a final antimony - is one of mutual plagiarism.

  Mary McCarthy

  Finals, Literature, Plagiarism

  14 Copy quote

• Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.

  Mary McCarthy

  Witty, Eye, Past

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

  31 Copy quote

• The happy ending is our national belief.

  Mary McCarthy

  Happiness, Belief, Happy Endings

  "America the Beautiful: The Humanist in the Bathtub" (1947)

  4 Copy quote

• A politician or political thinker who calls himself a political realist is usually boasting that he sees politics, so to speak, in the raw; he is generally a proclaimed cynic and pessimist who makes it his business to look behind words and fine speeches for the motive. This motive is always low.

  Mary McCarthy

  Political, Looks, Speech

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

  5 Copy quote

• Anybody who has ever tried to rectify an injustice or set a record straight comes to feel that he is going mad.

  Mary McCarthy

  Mad, Records, Injustice

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

  5 Copy quote

• I shall never send for a priest or recite an Act of Contrition in my last moments. I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person.

  Mary McCarthy

  Work Out, Soul, Mind

  8 Copy quote

• The idea of Macbeth as a conscience-torm ented man is a platitude as false as Macbeth himself. Macbeth has no conscience. His main concern throughout the play is that most selfish of all concerns: to get a good night's sleep.

  Mary McCarthy

  Good Night, Selfish, Sleep

  16 Copy quote

• Our language, once homely and colloquial, seeks to aggrandize our meanest activities with polysyllabic terms or it retreats from frankness into a stammering verbosity.

  Mary McCarthy

  Retreat, Language, Stammering

  Mary McCarthy (1985). “Occasional prose”, Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• Life for the European is a career; for the American it is a hazard.

  Mary McCarthy

  Life, Europe, Careers

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

  8 Copy quote

• There are no new truths, but only truths that have not been recognized by those who have perceived them without noticing.

  Mary McCarthy

  Happiness, Truth, Perception

  On the Contrary (1961) "Vita Activa"

  7 Copy quote

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