Quotessence
Home / Authors / Mary McCarthy
Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsLiteraturePeopleVeniceMenWorldCharacterFeelsKindRealLooksBehindsBelieveDoeEuropeFactsHeroLyingMassModern

Famous Mary McCarthy Quotes

“It really seems to me sometimes that the only hope is space. That is to say, perhaps the most energetic—in a bad sense—elements will move on to a new world in space. The problems of mass society will be transported into space, leaving behind this world as a kind of Europe, which then eventually tourists will visit. The Old World. I'm only half joking.”

WorldKindSometimesProblemSeemsMovingSpaceBehindsHalfThis WorldElementsMassEuropeLeavingNew WorldTouristsEnergeticSpace TravelOld World
Author:Mary McCarthy
Create image

“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.”

PeopleWorldPersonsPainCultureReadingHalfClassImagineModernMiddlePaintingPursuitMiddle ClassImagine ThatEnthusiasticLivelyTraitorTruman
Book:A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays
Create image

“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.”

WorldKindChildrenRealityCareAmericaPastCausesHistoryVirtueModernBirthLosingOneselfCatholicismQuarrelsModern WorldRebelliousHappy EndingsCivicsNonconformity
Book:Memories Of A Catholic Girlhood
Create image

“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.”

PeopleWorldWayUniverseSpaceImpossibleWideProofNuclearBombsRadiationTheologianScandalRocketsSatellitesPoisoningHydrogenNuclear PowerHydrogen BombFissionNuclear Fission
Book:The humanist in the bathtub
Create image