Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man. Mary McCarthy Read Quote
Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished, or if it does, as in the case of the tilled field, this product of human activity requires still more labor, incessant, tireless labor, to maintain its identity as a ‘work’ of man. Mary McCarthy Read Quote
In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons. Mary McCarthy Read Quote
The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist, who is intensely curious about what will happen to the hero. Mary McCarthy Read Quote
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 Read Quote
The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor is toil that never finishes, toil that has to be begun again the moment it is completed, toil that is destroyed and consumed by the life process. Mary McCarthy Read Quote
The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air. Mary McCarthy Read Quote
