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Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy Quotes

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Mary McCarthy was a prominent American author born on June 21, 1912, and passed away on October 25, 1989. Known for her incisive social criticism and nuanced portrayal of human nature, she is considered one of the most influential figures in 20th-century American literature.

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All Ifs Literature People Venice Men World Character Feels Kind Real

Famous Mary McCarthy Quotes

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

Forget Novelists Elephants

Author:Mary McCarthy

“What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake.”

Real Cake Imaginary Plums

Author:Mary McCarthy

“To be disesteemed by people you don't have much respect for is not the worst fate.”

People Fate Worst

Author:Mary McCarthy

“Old money is fully as moronic as new money but it has inherited an appearance of cultivation.”

Appearance Cultivation Old Money

Author:Mary McCarthy

“Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.”

Men Humans Whole Literature Sides Behavior Conscious Human Behavior Apes

Book:Mary McCarthy: Novels 1963-1979

Source: Mary McCarthy: Novels 1963-1979

“I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you're older, I think, is that - how to express this - you really must make the self.”

Thinking Feels Self Literature Quests

Author:Mary McCarthy

“The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof”

America Literature Europe Negative Proof Immense Popularity Unfinished American Movie

Author:Mary McCarthy

“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”

States Moments House Process Work Labor Naked Destroyed Toil Consumed Housework

Author:Mary McCarthy

“For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer.”

Self Strong Demand Authority Worthy Self Realization Realization Opponents Rebel Lucifer Worthy Opponents

Author:Mary McCarthy

“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.”

“The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass ... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness.”

Made Choices Social Decision Pay Mass Standing Refugee Exile Helplessness Nuance Implied Character Education

Book:Occasional prose

Source: Occasional prose

“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.”

Men Ideas Play Night Sleep Conscience Concern Selfish Good Night Platitudes

Author:Mary McCarthy

“Be truthful... and pay attention. I would also recommend the avoidance of credit cards.”

Pay Attention Advice Credit Cards Pay Attention Truthful Avoidance Credit Card Being Truthful

Author:Mary McCarthy

“I am for the ones who represent sense, and so was Jane Austen.”

Author:Mary McCarthy

“The horror of Gandhi's murder lies not in the political motives behind it or in its consequences for Indian policy or for the future of non-violence; the horror lies simply in the fact that any man could look into the face of this extraordinary person and deliberately pull a trigger.”

Men Looks Persons Facts Faces Political Lying Behinds Violence Policy Horror Consequence Murder Extraordinary Indian Motive Triggers Non Violence Extraordinary Person

Author:Mary McCarthy

“For me, in fact, the mark of the historic is the nonchalance with which it picks up an individual and deposits him in a trend, like a house playfully moved by a tornado.”

Facts House Individual History Picks Mark Moved Trends Historic Deposits Tornadoes Nonchalance

Book:A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

Source: A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

“It has to be acknowledged that in capitalist society, with its herds of hippies, originality has become a sort of fringe benefit, a mere convention, accepted obsolescence, the Beatnik model being turned in for the Hippie model, as though strangely obedient to capitalist laws of marketing.”

Law Benefits Models Mere Marketing Accepted Conventions Capitalist Originality Fringe Hippie Herds Obedient Obsolescence Beatnik

Book:Hanoi

Source: Hanoi

“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.”

Ifs Should Mind Kind Persons Soul Moments Care Lasts Loses Deals Company Eternity Work Out My Soul Damn Priests Unfortunate God Exists Contrition

Author:Mary McCarthy

“America is indeed a revelation, though not quite the one that was planned. Given a clean slate, man, it was hoped, would write the future. Instead, he has written his past.”

Men Writing America Past Given Written Clean Revelations Slate Clean Slate

Book:The humanist in the bathtub

Source: The humanist in the bathtub

“Driving a car, you are in danger of killing; walking or standing, of being killed.”

Car Danger Walking Standing Killing Driving

Book:The Stones of Florence

Source: The Stones of Florence

“If you talked or laughed in church, told lies, had impure thoughts or conversations, you were bad; if you obeyed your parents or guardians, went to confession and communion regularly, said prayers for the dead, you were good.”

Ifs Said Character Lying Parent Church Prayer Conversation Laughed Confession Communion Guardian Good Character Impure Thoughts

Book:The company she keeps

Source: The company she keeps

“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.”

World Children Happens Action Form Mother Causes Break Childhood Strikes

Book:The humanist in the bathtub

Source: The humanist in the bathtub

“Congress-these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy, and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous, and slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of political patronage.”

Political Speech Congress Fancy Illiterate Hacks Hypocritical Vests Gravy Patronage

Book:The humanist in the bathtub

Source: The humanist in the bathtub

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

Lonely Deception Ephemeral Courtship Frivolous

Book:The company she keeps

Source: The company she keeps

“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.”

Lines Economy Effects Simplicity Shops Elegance Tourists Austerity

Book:The Stones of Florence

Source: The Stones of Florence

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

Feels Records Mad Injustice Rectify

Book:The humanist in the bathtub

Source: The humanist in the bathtub

“Leisure was the sine qua non of the full Renaissance. The feudal nobility, having lost its martial function, sought diversion all over Europe in cultivated pastimes: sonneteering, the lute, games and acrostics, travel, gentlemanly studies and sports, hunting and hawking, treated as arts.”

Art Games Lost Sports Study Europe Function Treated Hunting Leisure Nobility Renaissance Pastime Diversion Gentlemanly

Book:Venice observed

Source: Venice observed

“All ideas advanced to deal with the Florentine noise problem, the Florentine traffic problem, are Utopian, and nobody believes in them, just as nobody believed in Machiavelli's Prince, a Utopian image of the ideally self-interested despot.”

Believe Ideas Self Problem Deals Noise Traffic Utopian Despots

Book:The Stones of Florence

Source: The Stones of Florence

“It is impossible, except for theologians, to conceive of a world-wide scandal or a universe-wide scandal; the proof of this is the way people have settled down to living with nuclear fission, radiation poisoning, hydrogen bombs, satellites, and space rockets.”

Source: The humanist in the bathtub

“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.”

Littles Real House Flower Wine Property Fruit Oil Owners Stations Farms Apartment Estates Foreigners

Book:The Stones of Florence

Source: The Stones of Florence

“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.”

Source: A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

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

Kind Bigs Political Girl Socialism Hockey Pants

Book:A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

Source: A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

“In moments of despair, we look on ourselves lead-enly as objects; we see ourselves, our lives, as someone else might see them and may even be driven to kill ourselves if the separation, the "knowledge," seems sufficiently final.”

Ifs Looks May Moments Seems Might Our Lives Objects Despair Finals Driven Separation

Book:On the contrary

Source: On the contrary

“The perennial wonder of Venice is to peer at herself in her canals and find that she exists-incredible as it seems. It is the same reassurance that a looking-glass offers us: the guarantee that we are real.”

Real Seems Wonder Offers Incredibles Glasses Guarantees Peers Venice Guarantees That Reassurance Canals

Book:Venice observed

Source: Venice observed

“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.”

Mind Cities Doubt Poet Myth Dry Venice Inspection Honeymooners

Book:Venice observed

Source: Venice observed

“This grossly advertised wonder [Venice], this gold idol with clay feet, this trompe-l'oeil, this painted deception, this cliche-what intelligent iconoclast could fail to experience a destructive impulse in her presence?”

Wonder Failing Feet Gold Intelligent Deception Impulse Destructive Idols Clay Cliche Venice

Author:Mary McCarthy

“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.”

World Made Eye White Saint Beast Unconscious Dragons Venice Guarded Misers

Book:Venice observed

Source: Venice observed

“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.”

Ifs Men Humans Doe Stills Literature Behinds Cases Fields Identity Products Activity Labor Finished Human Activity Incessant

Book:On the contrary

Source: On the contrary

“Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot understand (seeing nothing else to do) and understand what we cannot pardon.”

Political Understanding Seeing Forgiving Pardon Prelude

Author:Mary McCarthy

About the Author

Born: June 21, 1912
Died: October 25, 1989
Known for: Author
Quotes: 139

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Books & Sources

The humanist in the bathtubRelated source material

On the contraryRelated source material

A Bolt from the Blue and Other EssaysRelated source material

Venice observedRelated source material

The company she keepsRelated source material

Mary McCarthy: Novels 1963-1979Related source material

Occasional proseRelated source material

The Stones of FlorenceRelated source material

Memories Of A Catholic GirlhoodRelated source material

Intellectual Memoirs: New York, 1936-1938Related source material

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