“At home I never thought I was much of a conformist. But I now see that I was without knowing it. I did what everybody else did without being aware I was copying them. Here I mind being different. Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.”

—  Mary McCarthy

"Epistle from Mother Carey's Chicken"
Birds of America (1971)

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Mary McCarthy 79
American writer 1912–1989

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