Mary McCarthy: Trending quotes (page 2)

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“The theater is the only branch of art much cared for by people of wealth; like canasta, it does away with the bother of talk after dinner.”

Mary McCarthy

"Up the Ladder from Charm to Vogue", p. 185. First published in two parts in The Reporter (July 18 and August 1, 1950)
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

People , Art , Wealth

“When Henry Mulcahy, a middle-aged instructor of literature at Jocelyn College, Jocelyn, Pennsylvania, unfolded the President's letter and became aware of its contents, he gave a sudden sharp cry of impatience and irritation, as if such interruptions could positively be brooked no longer.”

Mary McCarthy book The Groves of Academe

Source: The Groves of Academe (1952), Ch. I, p. 293, first lines of novel

Age , Literature , Cry

“In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.”

Mary McCarthy

"Solutions," Vietnam (1967)

“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.”

Mary McCarthy

"Characters in Fiction", p. 291
Sometimes misquoted as "We all live in suspense from day to day; in other words, you are the hero of your own story."
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

“[I]n science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality.”

Mary McCarthy

"The Fact in Fiction", p. 266. First published in Partisan Review (Summer 1960)
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Science

“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

Look (26 February 1964)

Women , Secret , Feeling

“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.”

Mary McCarthy

"My Confession", p. 76
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Thinking

“Of all the men I slept with in my studio-bed on Gay Street (and there were a lot: I stopped counting) I liked Bill Mangold the best. Until I began to see Philip Rahv.”

Mary McCarthy

Source: Intellectual Memoirs: New York 1936–1938 (1992), Ch. 2

Men

“It was June, 1933, one week after Commencement, when Kay Leiland Strong, Vassar '33, the first of her class to run around the table at the Class Day dinner, was married to Harald Petersen, Reed '27, in the chapel of St. George's Church, P. E., Karl F. Reiland, Rector.”

Mary McCarthy book The Group

Source: The Group (1963), Ch. 1, first lines of novel

Strong

“To be a child is something one learns, as one learns the names of rivers or the kings of France. Childhood, for a child, is a sort of falseness, woodenness, stoniness, a lesson recited. Many children are aware of this — that is, aware of being children as a special, prosy condition: "We can't do that! We're children!" Playing children is a long boring game with occasional exciting moments.”

Mary McCarthy

"Everybody's Childhood"
The Writing on the Wall and Other Literary Essays (1970)

Children , Game , Learning , Childhood

“The American, if he has a spark of national feeling, will be humiliated by the very prospect of a foreigner's visit to 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, these persons are a reflection on the democratic process rather than of it; they expose it in its underwear.”

Mary McCarthy

"America the Beautiful: The Humanist in the Bathtub", p. 8. First published in Commentary (September 1947)
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Feeling , Parting , Personality

“Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.”

Mary McCarthy

Birds of Americs (1965), "Epistle from Mother Carey's Chicken"

Behavior

“Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother’s nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against the Protestant ascendancy […] articles attacking birth control, divorce, mixed marriages, Darwin and secular education were her favourite reading. The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others […] The extermination of Protestantism, rather than spiritual perfection, was the boon she prayed for.”

Mary McCarthy book Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

Source: Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (1957), Ch. 1

Marriage , War , Education , Feeling

“It was getting rather alarming. I realised one day that in twenty four hours I had slept with three different men. And one morning I was in bed with somebody while over his head I talked on the telephone with somebody else…I did not feel promiscuous. Maybe no-one does. And maybe more girls sleep with more men than you would ever think to look at them.”

Mary McCarthy

Source: Intellectual Memoirs: New York 1936–1938 (1992), Ch. 2

Men , Feeling , Girl , Thinking

“You know what my favourite quotation is? […] It’s from Chaucer […] Criseyde says it, "I am myne owene woman, wel at ese."”

Mary McCarthy

First published in Partisan Review (July-August 1941)
Source: The Company She Keeps (1942), Ch. 3 "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt", p. 70.

“Judas was not a monster, though his act was monstrous; he was a man, the twelfth part of humanity, and his sin was that he could betray for thirty pieces of silver, like any common informer. Jesus was uncommon, not Judas.”

Mary McCarthy

"The Hue and Cry"
The Writing on the Wall and Other Literary Essays (1970)

Parting

“People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.”

Mary McCarthy

"The Contagion of Ideas", p. 54
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Children , People , Fear

“I combine concrete cynicism with a sort of vague optimism.”

Mary McCarthy

As quoted in "Lady with a Switchblade" in LIFE magazine (20 September 1963)

Optimism

“I was able to compare the sexual equipment of the various men I made love with and there were amazing differences, in both length and massiveness. One handsome married man, who used to arrive with two Danishes from a very good bakery, had a penis about the size and shape of a lead pencil; he shall remain nameless. In my experience there was usually a relation to height, as Philip Rahv and Bill Mangold, both tall men, bore out. There may be dwarfish men with monstrously large organs, but I have never known one. It was not until later, after my second divorce, that I met an impotent man or a pervert (two of the latter)… None of my partners, the reader will be relieved to hear, had a venereal disease.”

Mary McCarthy

Source: Intellectual Memoirs: New York 1936–1938 (1992), Ch. 2

Love , Men , Disease

“The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof.”

Mary McCarthy

"America the Beautiful: The Humanist in the Bathtub", p. 18
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)