Mary McCarthy Quotes - Page 4

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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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• 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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• 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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• In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality.

  Mary McCarthy

  Science, Equality, Literature

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

  7 Copy quote

• 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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• 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

  10 Copy quote

• 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”

  4 Copy quote

• Modern neurosis began with the discoveries of Copernicus. Science made men feel small by showing him that the earth was not the center of the universe.

  Mary McCarthy

  Science, Men, Discovery

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

  52 Copy quote

• The things of this world reveal their essential absurdity when they are put in the Venetian context. In the unreal realm of the canals, as in a Swiftian Lilliput, the real world, with its contrivances, appears as a vast folly.

  Mary McCarthy

  Real, Venice, Essentials

  Mary McCarthy (1956). “Venice observed”

  7 Copy quote

• Calling someone a monster does not make him more guilty; it makes him less so by classing him with beasts and devils.

  Mary McCarthy

  Devil, Monsters, Doe

  "The writing on the wall: and Other Literary Essays (The Hue and Cry)". Book by Mary McCarthy, 1970.

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• The dictator is also the scapegoat; in assuming absolute authority, he assumes absolute guilt; and the oppressed masses, groaning under the yoke, know themselves to be innocent as lambs, while they pray hypocritically for deliverance.

  Mary McCarthy

  Guilt, Yoke, Lambs

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

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• To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.

  Mary McCarthy

  Children, Past, Reality

  Mary McCarthy (2011). “Memories Of A Catholic Girlhood”, p.16, Random House

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• The erotic element always present in fashion, the kiss of loving labor on the body, is now overtly expressed by language. Belts hug or clasp; necklines plunge; jerseys bind. The word exciting tingles everywhere.

  Mary McCarthy

  Fashion, Kissing, Clothes

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

  4 Copy quote

• A good deal of education consists of unlearning-the breaking of bad habits as with a tennis serve.

  Mary McCarthy

  Justice, Diversity, Tennis

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• Yet friendship, I believe, is essential to intellectuals. It is probably the growth hormone the mind requires as it begins its activity of producing and exchanging ideas. You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship formed by the expanding central trunk. In the course of my history, not love or marriage so much as friendship has promoted growth.

  Mary McCarthy

  Friendship, Believe, Growth Hormones

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• Proscription, martial law, the billeting of the rude troops, the tax collector, the unjust judge, anything at all, is sweeter than responsibility.

  Mary McCarthy

  Responsibility, Law, Judging

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

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• The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor is toil that never finishes, toil that has to be begun again the moment it is completed, toil that is destroyed and consumed by the life process

  Mary McCarthy

  Work, House, Toil

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

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• The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is the fact that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable. ... No nation with any sense of material well-being would endure the food we eat, the cramped apartments we live in, the noise, the traffic, the crowded subways and buses. American life, in large cities, at any rate, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves.

  Mary McCarthy

  Life, Character, Cities

  "On the contrary".

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• It really takes a hero to live any kind of spiritual life without religious belief.

  Mary McCarthy

  Spiritual, Religious, Hero

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• The famous Florentine elegance, which attracts tourists to the shops on Via Tornabuoni and Via della Vigna Nuova, is characterized by austerity of line, simplicity, economy of effect.

  Mary McCarthy

  Simplicity, Tourists, Lines

  Mary McCarthy (1959). “The stones of Florence”

  7 Copy quote

• A novelist is an elephant, but an elephant who must pretend to forget.

  Mary McCarthy

  Elephants, Novelists, Forget

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• The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has all too much a professional air.

  Mary McCarthy

  Character, Eye, Air

  "America the Beautiful". Commentary Magazine, September 1947.

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• Like Michelangelo and Cellini, Florentines of every station are absorbed in acquiring real estate: a little apartment that can be rented to foreigners; a farm that will supply the owner with oil, wine, fruit, and flowers for the house.

  Mary McCarthy

  Real, Flower, Wine

  Mary McCarthy (2016). “The Stones of Florence”, p.222, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• It [Socialism] was a kind of political hockey played by big, gaunt, dyspeptic girls in pants.

  Mary McCarthy

  Girl, Hockey, Political

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

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• The return to a favorite novel is generally tied up with changes in oneself that must be counted as improvements, but have the feel of losses. It is like going back to a favorite house, country, person; nothing is where it belongs, including one's heart.

  Mary McCarthy

  Country, Book, Reading

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

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