"We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story."
"Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret."
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Source: Mary McCarthy (2002). “A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays”, New York Review of Books
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"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."
"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."
"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."
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"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."