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In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

Mary McCarthy

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Mary McCarthy
Age: 77 †
Born: 1912
Born: June 21
Died: 1989
Died: October 25
Author
Autobiographer
Critic
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Seattle
Washington
Mary Therese McCarthy
Consideration
Reasons
Dictated
Politician
Considerations
Military
Suggested
Politics
Shameful
Seems
Retreat
Reason
Honorable
Even
Ethical

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I really tried, or so I thought, to avoid lying, but it seemed to me that they forced it on me by the difference in their vision of things, so that I was always transposing reality for them into something they could understand.
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In violence, we forget who we are
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Driving a car, you are in danger of killing walking or standing, of being killed.
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Morality did not keep well it required stable conditions it was costly it was subject to variations, and the market for it was uncertain.
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The desire to believe the best of people is a prerequisite for intercourse with strangers suspicion is reserved for friends.
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What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake.
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Modern neurosis began with the discoveries of Copernicus. Science made men feel small by showing him that the earth was not the center of the universe.
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Feminism is ridiculous. Feminists are silly idealists who want to be on top. There is no real equality in sexual relationships - someone always wins.
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All dramatic realism is somewhat sadistic an audience is persuaded to watch something that makes it uncomfortable and from which no relief is offered - no laughter, no tears, no purgation.
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We are the hero of our own story.
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An unrectified case of injustice has a terrible way of lingering, restlessly, in the social atmosphere like an unfinished question.
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With extramarital courtship, the deception was prolonged where it had been ephemeral, necessary where it had been frivolous, conspiratorial where it had been lonely.
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For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer.
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Proscription, martial law, the billeting of the rude troops, the tax collector, the unjust judge, anything at all, is sweeter than responsibility.
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The horror of Gandhi's murder lies not in the political motives behind it or in its consequences for Indian policy or for the future of non-violence the horror lies simply in the fact that any man could look into the face of this extraordinary person and deliberately pull a trigger.
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I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you're older, I think, is that - how to express this - you really must make the self.
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Like Michelangelo and Cellini, Florentines of every station are absorbed in acquiring real estate: a little apartment that can be rented to foreigners a farm that will supply the owner with oil, wine, fruit, and flowers for the house.
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Old money is fully as moronic as new money but it has inherited an appearance of cultivation.
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The erotic element always present in fashion, the kiss of loving labor on the body, is now overtly expressed by language. Belts hug or clasp necklines plunge jerseys bind. The word exciting tingles everywhere.
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There are no new truths, but only truths that have not been recognized by those who have perceived them without noticing.
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