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Quote by Mary McCarthy

“this is the spirit of the enchantment under which Venice lies, pearly and roseate, like the Sleeping Beauty, changeless throughout the centuries, arrested, while the concrete forest of the modern world grows up around her.”

Quote by Mary McCarthy

Book:Venice observed

Work

Venice observed

This book offers a detailed exploration of Venice, capturing its unique culture, architecture, and atmosphere through a series of observations and reflections. more

Author

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. more

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“Venice, as a city, was a foundling, floating upon the waters like Moses in his basket among the bulrushes.”

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Book:Venice observed

Source: Venice observed

“The breakdown of our language, evident in the misuse, i.e., the misunderstanding of nouns and adjectives, is most grave, though perhaps not so conspicuous, in the handling of prepositions, those modest little connectives that hold the parts of a phrase or a sentence together. They are the joints of any language, what make it, literally, articulate.”

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Book:Occasional prose

Source: Occasional prose

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

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Book:Occasional prose

Source: Occasional prose

“Laughter is the great antidote for self-pity, maybe a specific for the malady, yet probably it does tend to dry one's feelings out a little, as if by exposing them to a vigorous wind.”

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Author:Mary McCarthy

“As subjects, we all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story. We cannot believe that it is finished, that we are 'finished,' even though we may say so; we expect another chapter, another installment, tomorrow or next week.”

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Book:The humanist in the bathtub

Source: The humanist in the bathtub

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

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Author:Mary McCarthy

“Morality did not keep well; it required stable conditions; it was costly; it was subject to variations, and the market for it was uncertain.”

Wells Conditions Subjects Morality Stable Uncertain Variation

Book:The Oasis: A Novel

Source: The Oasis: A Novel

“For both writer and reader, the novel is a lonely, physically inactive affair. Only the imagination races.”

Imagination Race Novel Reader Lonely Affair

Author:Mary McCarthy

“Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character.”

Character Given Sex Space Novel Identity Absence Contemporary

Book:The humanist in the bathtub

Source: The humanist in the bathtub

“love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.”

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Book:A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

Source: A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays