Yet friendship, I believe, is essential to intellectuals. It is probably the growth hormone the mind requires as it begins its activity of producing and exchanging ideas. 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. In the course of my history, not love or marriage so much as friendship has promoted growth.
Mary McCarthyA good deal of education consists of unlearning-the breaking of bad habits as with a tennis serve.
Mary McCarthyBeing abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.
Mary McCarthylove of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.
Mary McCarthy... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.
Mary McCarthy... it was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words ofthe Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint's picture.
Mary McCarthy