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. Mary McCarthy More Quotes by Mary McCarthy More Quotes From Mary McCarthy I really tried, or so I thought, to avoid lying, but it seemed to me that they forced it on me by the difference in their vision of things, so that I was always transposing reality for them into something they could understand. Mary McCarthy differences lying reality I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently inhibited about the things that other women are inhibited about for me. They feel that you've given away trade secrets. Mary McCarthy given literature secret When an American heiress wants to buy a man, she at once crosses the Atlantic. The only really materialistic people I have ever met have been Europeans. Mary McCarthy literature men people An unrectified case of injustice has a terrible way of lingering, restlessly, in the social atmosphere like an unfinished question. Mary McCarthy atmosphere justice way Life for the European is a career; for the American it is a hazard. Mary McCarthy careers europe life The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor is toil that never finishes, toil that has to be begun again the moment it is completed, toil that is destroyed and consumed by the life process Mary McCarthy toil house work A novelist is an elephant, but an elephant who must pretend to forget. Mary McCarthy novelists elephants forget 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. Mary McCarthy historical giving believe Old money is fully as moronic as new money but it has inherited an appearance of cultivation. Mary McCarthy old-money cultivation appearance The theater is the only branch of art much cared for by people of wealth; like canasta, it does away with the brother of talk after dinner. Mary McCarthy brother people art If one means by style the voice, the irreducible and always recognizable and alive thing, then of course style is really everything. Mary McCarthy style voice mean I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you're older, I think, is that ... you really must make the self. It is absolutely useless to look for it, you won't find it, but it's possible in some sense to make it. I don't mean in the sense of making a mask, a Yeatsian mask. But you finally begin in some sense to make and choose the self you want. Mary McCarthy self mean thinking I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you're older, I think, is that - how to express this - you really must make the self. Mary McCarthy literature self thinking The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof Mary McCarthy europe america negative People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children. Mary McCarthy forgiveness women children Any sizeable Portuguese town looks like a superstitious bride's finery - something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Mary McCarthy blue europe looks Morality did not keep well; it required stable conditions; it was costly; it was subject to variations, and the market for it was uncertain. Mary McCarthy variation morality uncertain For both writer and reader, the novel is a lonely, physically inactive affair. Only the imagination races. Mary McCarthy lonely imagination race Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character. Mary McCarthy space character sex 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. Mary McCarthy hero believe next-week
