The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has all too much a professional air.
Mary McCarthyBeing abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.
Mary McCarthyLaughter is the great antidote for self-pity, maybe a specific for the malady, yet probably it does tend to dry one's feelings out a little, as if by exposing them to a vigorous wind.
Mary McCarthyThe strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable.
Mary McCarthy