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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.

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
Men
Modern
Small
Copernicus
Universe
Neurosis
Science
Discoveries
Earth
Showing
Feel
Center
Feels
Began
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Discovery

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Life is a system of recurrent pairs, the poison and the antidote being eternally packaged together by some considerate heavenly druggist.
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Calling someone a monster does not make him more guilty it makes him less so by classing him with beasts and devils.
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My occupational hazard is that I can't help plagiarizing from real life.
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I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently inhibited about the things that other women are inhibited about for me. They feel that you've given away trade secrets.
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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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I shall never send for a priest or recite an Act of Contrition in my last moments. I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person.
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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 breakdown of our language, evident in the misuse, i.e., the misunderstanding of nouns and adjectives, is most grave, though perhaps not so conspicuous, in the handling of prepositions, those modest little connectives that hold the parts of a phrase or a sentence together. They are the joints of any language, what make it, literally, articulate.
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Venice, as a city, was a foundling, floating upon the waters like Moses in his basket among the bulrushes.
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The return to a favorite novel is generally tied up with changes in oneself that must be counted as improvements, but have the feel of losses. It is like going back to a favorite house, country, person nothing is where it belongs, including one's heart.
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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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We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour in other words, we are the hero of our own story.
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this is the spirit of the enchantment under which Venice lies, pearly and roseate, like the Sleeping Beauty, changeless throughout the centuries, arrested, while the concrete forest of the modern world grows up around her.
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Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished.
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What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake.
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We are a nation of 20 million bathrooms, with a humanist in every tub.
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Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.
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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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An unrectified case of injustice has a terrible way of lingering, restlessly, in the social atmosphere like an unfinished question.
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A good deal of education consists of unlearning-the breaking of bad habits as with a tennis serve.
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