Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the." Mary McCarthy More Quotes by Mary McCarthy More Quotes From Mary McCarthy All ideas advanced to deal with the Florentine noise problem, the Florentine traffic problem, are Utopian, and nobody believes in them, just as nobody believed in Machiavelli's Prince, a Utopian image of the ideally self-interested despot. Mary McCarthy self believe ideas 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. Mary McCarthy marketing hippie law For me, in fact, the mark of the historic is the nonchalance with which it picks up an individual and deposits him in a trend, like a house playfully moved by a tornado. Mary McCarthy nonchalance house history The suspense in a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist himself, who is intensely curious too about what will happen to the hero. Mary McCarthy suspense-novels novelists hero To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics. Mary McCarthy children reality past To be disesteemed by people you don't have much respect for is not the worst fate. Mary McCarthy worst fate people For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer. Mary McCarthy rebel strong self The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is the fact that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable. ... No nation with any sense of material well-being would endure the food we eat, the cramped apartments we live in, the noise, the traffic, the crowded subways and buses. American life, in large cities, at any rate, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves. Mary McCarthy cities character life The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass ... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness. Mary McCarthy choices decision pay Be truthful... and pay attention. I would also recommend the avoidance of credit cards. Mary McCarthy advice attention cards I am for the ones who represent sense, and so was Jane Austen. Mary McCarthy jane austen The horror of Gandhi's murder lies not in the political motives behind it or in its consequences for Indian policy or for the future of non-violence; the horror lies simply in the fact that any man could look into the face of this extraordinary person and deliberately pull a trigger. Mary McCarthy extraordinary-person men lying Like Michelangelo and Cellini, Florentines of every station are absorbed in acquiring real estate: a little apartment that can be rented to foreigners; a farm that will supply the owner with oil, wine, fruit, and flowers for the house. Mary McCarthy wine flower real Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted. Spicy court-memoirs, the lives of gallant ladies, recollections of an ex-nun, a monk's confession, an atheist's repentance, true-to-life accounts of prostitution and bastardy gave our ancestors a penny peep into the forbidden room. Mary McCarthy true-life eye atheist When you have committed an action that you cannot bear to think about, that causes you to writhe in retrospect, do not seek to evade the memory: make yourself relive it, confront it repeatedly over and over, till finally, you will discover, through sheer repetition it loses its power to pain you. It works, I guarantee you, this sure-fire guilt-eradicator, like a homeopathic medicine - like in small doses applied to like. It works, but I am not sure that it is a good thing. Mary McCarthy pain memories thinking I was going to get myself recognized at any price. If I could not win fame by goodness, I was ready to do it by badness. Mary McCarthy goodness winning fame The consumer today is the victim of the manufacturer who launches on him a regiment of products for which he must make room in his soul. Mary McCarthy soul today rooms In morals as in politics anarchy is not for the weak. Mary McCarthy anarchy moral weak it came to me, as we sat there, glumly ordering lunch, that for extremely stupid people anti-Semitism was a form of intellectuality, the sole form of intellectuality of which they were capable. It represented, in a rudimentary way, the ability to make categories, to generalize. Mary McCarthy lunch stupid people The return to a favorite novel is generally tied up with changes in oneself that must be counted as improvements, but have the feel of losses. It is like going back to a favorite house, country, person; nothing is where it belongs, including one's heart. Mary McCarthy reading country book