Mary McCarthy

“People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.”

“Life for the European is a career; for the American it is a hazard.”

“The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor is toil that never finishes, toil that has to be begun again the moment it is completed, toil that is destroyed and consumed by the life process.”

“Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.”

“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.”

“You musn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.”

“When an American heiress wants to buy a man, she at once crosses the Atlantic. The only really materialistic people I have ever met have been Europeans.”

“In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality.”