I am putting real plums into an imaginary cake. Mary McCarthy More Quotes by Mary McCarthy More Quotes From Mary McCarthy We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story. Mary McCarthy positive-attitude hero life Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the." Mary McCarthy writing funny lying most people did not care to be taught what they did not already know; it made them feel ignorant. Mary McCarthy learning education people We are the hero of our own story. Mary McCarthy inspirational-life self-esteem hero 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. Mary McCarthy selfish good-night sleep If someone tells you he is going to make a 'realistic decision', you immediately understand that he has resolved to do something bad. Mary McCarthy bad-decision realistic decision You know what my favourite quotation is?.. It's from Chaucer... Criseyde says it, "I am myne owene woman, wel at ese." Mary McCarthy chaucer favourite knows Illiteracy at the poverty level (mainly a matter of bad grammar) does not alarm me nearly as much as the illiteracy of the well-to-do. Mary McCarthy alarms levels doe From what I have seen, I am driven to the conclusion that religion is only good for good people. Mary McCarthy good-people driven people Feminism is ridiculous. Feminists are silly idealists who want to be on top. There is no real equality in sexual relationships - someone always wins. Mary McCarthy real winning silly Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism. Mary McCarthy modern libertarian liberty Our language, once homely and colloquial, seeks to aggrandize our meanest activities with polysyllabic terms or it retreats from frankness into a stammering verbosity. Mary McCarthy stammering retreat language What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake. Mary McCarthy plums cake real In violence, we forget who we are Mary McCarthy domestic-violence who-we-are war There are no new truths, but only truths that have not been recognized by those who have perceived them without noticing. Mary McCarthy perception truth happiness In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality. Mary McCarthy equality literature science ... it was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words ofthe Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint's picture. Mary McCarthy easter prayer latin Others are to us like the characters in fiction, eternal and incorrigible; the surprises they give us turn out in the end to have been predictable and unexpected variations on the theme of being themselves. Mary McCarthy personality giving character 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. Mary McCarthy forgiving political understanding It is impossible, except for theologians, to conceive of a world-wide scandal or a universe-wide scandal; the proof of this is the way people have settled down to living with nuclear fission, radiation poisoning, hydrogen bombs, satellites, and space rockets. Mary McCarthy hydrogen-bomb space people