Quote

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.

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
Present
Kissing
Plunge
Word
Everywhere
Erotic
Language
Loving
Belts
Body
Exciting
Hug
Tingles
Always
Labor
Jersey
Jerseys
Elements
Expressed
Overtly
Clothes
Element
Clasp
Fashion
Kiss
Bind

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Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character.
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Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot understand (seeing nothing else to do) and understand what we cannot pardon.
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If one means by style the voice, the irreducible and always recognizable and alive thing, then of course style is really everything.
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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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People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.
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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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For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer.
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Scratch a socialist and you find a snob.
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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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The passion for fact in a raw state is a peculiarity of the novelist.
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It really takes a hero to live any kind of spiritual life without religious belief.
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Once the state is looked upon as the source of rights, rather than their bound protector, freedom becomes conditional on the pleasure of the state.
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In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.
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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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it's easier to forgive your enemies than to forgive your friends.
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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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... the average Catholic perceives no connection between religion and morality, unless it is a question of someone else's morality.
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Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.
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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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Old money is fully as moronic as new money but it has inherited an appearance of cultivation.
Mary McCarthy