Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character.
Mary McCarthyIt [Socialism] was a kind of political hockey played by big, gaunt, dyspeptic girls in pants.
Mary McCarthyThe furniture and trappings in the apartment are all in a state of flux - here today, gone tomorrow. Nothing is anchored to its place, not even the coffee-pot, which floats off and returns, on the tide of the signora's marine nature.
Mary McCarthyLabor 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