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Quote by Mary McCarthy

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

Quote by Mary McCarthy

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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“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.”

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Book:A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

Source: A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

“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.”

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“As soon as you become a writer, you lose contact with ordinary experience or tend to. ... the worst fate of a writer is to become a writer.”

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“The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable.”

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Book:On the contrary

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“Who are the advertising men kidding, besides the European tourist? Between the tired, sad, gentle faces of the subway riders and the grinning Holy Families of the Ad-Mass, there exists no possibility of even a wishful identification.”

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Book:The humanist in the bathtub

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“The only difference between the narrator of contemporary affairs and the ordinary historian is that moral judgments about the present provoke fiercer reactions and have more immediately practical implications than moral judgments about the past.”

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“As for boredom ... I notice that it leaves me as soon as I am doing something that has got to be done.”

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“How comes it to pass, if they be only moved by chance and accident, that such regular mutations and generations should be begotten by a fortuitous concourse of atoms.”

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“An expert is the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.”

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Book:Murphy's Law: The 26th Anniversary Edition: The 26th Anniversary Edition

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“Often I am struck in amazement about a word: I suddenly realize that the complete arbitrariness of our language is but a part of the arbitrariness of our own world in general.”

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