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Memories Of A Catholic Girlhood

Book by Mary McCarthy · 3 quotes · Adolescence, America, Birth

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Memories Of A Catholic Girlhood Quotes

“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.”

“I came back [to school] in the fall, as a full-time boarder, with a certain set to my jaw, determined to go it alone. A summer passed in thoughtful isolation, rowing on a mountain lake, diving from a pier, had made me perfectly reckless. I was going to get myself recognized at whatever price. It was in this cold, empty gambler’s mood, common to politicians and adolescents, that I surveyed the convent setup. If I could not win fame by goodness, I was ready to do it by badness.”