Mary McCarthy - People Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

View all Mary McCarthy Quotes
It came to me, as we sat there, glumly ordering lunch, that for extremely stupid people anti-Semitism was a form of intellectuality, the sole form of intellectuality of which they were capable. It represented, in a rudimentary way, the ability to make categories, to generalize.

Mary McCarthy
The desire to believe the best of people is a prerequisite for intercourse with strangers; suspicion is reserved for friends.

Mary McCarthy
From what I have seen, I am driven to the conclusion that religion is only good for good people.

Mary McCarthy
When an American heiress wants to buy a man, she at once crosses the Atlantic. The only really materialistic people I have ever met have been Europeans.

Mary McCarthy
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
A society person who is enthusiastic about modern painting or Truman Capote is already half a traitor to his class. It is middle-class people who, quite mistakenly, imagine that a lively pursuit of the latest in reading and painting will advance their status in the world.

Mary McCarthy
To be disesteemed by people you don't have much respect for is not the worst fate.

Mary McCarthy
What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake.... If you're interested in the cake, you get rather annoyed with people saying what species the real plum was.

Mary McCarthy
People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.

Mary McCarthy
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
There are no new truths, but only truths that have not been recognized by those who have perceived them without noticing. A truth is something that everyone can be shown to know and to have known, as people say, all along.

Mary McCarthy
Most people did not care to be taught what they did not already know; it made them feel ignorant.

Mary McCarthy