Mary McCarthy
Mary McCarthy
Mary Therese McCarthywas an American novelist, critic and political activist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth21 June 1912
CitySeattle, WA
CountryUnited States of America
apartments argument assault basic bear character conditions crowded endure fact finds food foreigner lack large life material nation negative perpetual point senses strongest tolerate
The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is the fact that we tolerate conditions that are, from a negative point of view, intolerable. What the foreigner finds most objectionable in American life is its lack of basic comfort. 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, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves; it is out of asceticism, out of unworldliness, precisely, that we bear it.
good-night selfish sleep
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.
violence who-we-are forget
In violence, we forget who we are
laughter self wind
Laughter is the great antidote for self-pity, maybe a specific for the malady, yet probably it does tend to dry one's feelings out a little, as if by exposing them to a vigorous wind ...
retreat language stammering
Our language, once homely and colloquial, seeks to aggrandize our meanest activities with polysyllabic terms or it retreats from frankness into a stammering verbosity.
scratches socialism socialist
Scratch a socialist and you find a snob.
incessant labor behinds
Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished.
laughter tears watches
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.
venice tourists
...the tourist Venice is Venice.
best-love sex force
You mustn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.
austen jane
I am for the ones who represent sense, and so was Jane Austen.
tree mind age
You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship formed by the expanding central trunk.
variation morality uncertain
Morality did not keep well; it required stable conditions; it was costly; it was subject to variations, and the market for it was uncertain.
together adjectives phrases
The breakdown of our language, evident in the misuse, i.e., the misunderstanding of nouns and adjectives, is most grave, though perhaps not so conspicuous, in the handling of prepositions, those modest little connectives that hold the parts of a phrase or a sentence together. They are the joints of any language, what make it, literally, articulate.