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.
Mary McCarthyIt [Socialism] was a kind of political hockey played by big, gaunt, dyspeptic girls in pants.
Mary McCarthyCombativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother's nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. ...The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others.
Mary McCarthy