"We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story."
Read quote
77 likes
Quote collection
Mary McCarthy quotes (page 1 of 7)
136 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
Read quote
57 likes
"The Crucifixion and other historical precedents notwithstanding, many of us still believe that outstanding goodness is a kind of armor, that virtue, seen plain and bare, gives pause to criminality. But perhaps it is the other way around."
Read quote
52 likes
"Modern neurosis began with the discoveries of Copernicus. Science made men feel small by showing him that the earth was not the center of the universe."
Read quote
51 likes
"Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted."
Read quote
30 likes
"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."
Read quote
19 likes
"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."
Read quote
18 likes
"Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the.""
Read quote
18 likes
"Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism."
Read quote
17 likes
"For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer."
Read quote
16 likes
"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."
Read quote
16 likes
"If someone tells you he is going to make a 'realistic decision', you immediately understand that he has resolved to do something bad."
Read quote
16 likes
"Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior."
Read quote
15 likes
"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."
Read quote
15 likes
"We are the hero of our own story."
Read quote
15 likes
"In violence, we forget who we are"
Read quote
12 likes
"The relation between life and literature - a final antimony - is one of mutual plagiarism."
Read quote
12 likes
"most people did not care to be taught what they did not already know; it made them feel ignorant."
Read quote
12 likes
"You know what my favourite quotation is?.. It's from Chaucer... Criseyde says it, "I am myne owene woman, wel at ese.""
Read quote
11 likes
"An unrectified case of injustice has a terrible way of lingering, restlessly, in the social atmosphere like an unfinished question."
Read quote
10 likes