The theater is the only branch of art much cared for by people of wealth; like canasta, it does away with the brother of talk after dinner.
Mary McCarthyThe desire to believe the best of people is a prerequisite for intercourse with strangers; suspicion is reserved for friends.
Mary McCarthyAmerica is indeed a revelation, though not quite the one that was planned. Given a clean slate, man, it was hoped, would write the future. Instead, he has written his past.
Mary McCarthyit 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