For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer.
Mary McCarthyOthers are to us like the characters in fiction, eternal and incorrigible; the surprises they give us turn out in the end to have been predictable and unexpected variations on the theme of being themselves.
Mary McCarthyThe perennial wonder of Venice is to peer at herself in her canals and find that she exists-incredible as it seems. It is the same reassurance that a looking-glass offers us: the guarantee that we are real.
Mary McCarthy