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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.

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
Theater
Persuaded
Tears
Realism
Watches
Somewhat
Watch
Offered
Audience
Relief
Makes
Dramatic
Something
Uncomfortable
Laughter
Sadistic

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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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The idea of Macbeth as a conscience-torm ented man is a platitude as false as Macbeth himself. Macbeth has no conscience. His main concern throughout the play is that most selfish of all concerns: to get a good night's sleep.
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For me, in fact, the mark of the historic is the nonchalance with which it picks up an individual and deposits him in a trend, like a house playfully moved by a tornado.
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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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Whenever in history, equality appeared on the agenda, it was exported somewhere else, like an undesirable.
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Scratch a socialist and you find a snob.
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A novelist is an elephant, but an elephant who must pretend to forget.
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Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.
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love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.
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For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer.
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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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it's easier to forgive your enemies than to forgive your friends.
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The theater is the only branch of art much cared for by people of wealth like canasta, it does away with the brother of talk after dinner.
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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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Driving a car, you are in danger of killing walking or standing, of being killed.
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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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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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Life for the European is a career for the American it is a hazard.
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...the tourist Venice is Venice.
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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.
Mary McCarthy