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[Y]ou have to live without love, learn not to need it, in order to live with it.

— Mary McCarthy The Group (1963)

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Ch. 2.
Work: The Group, 1963
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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You mustn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.

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We are a nation of twenty million bathrooms, with a humanist in every tub.

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

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Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.

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Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.

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You never learn a language unless you use it.

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As subjects, 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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If you want to be your own master, his father used to say, always be surprised by evil; never anticipate it.

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Notes from Wikiquote

Advice given to Lakey by one of the older teachers at Vassar; "Lakey was terrifically impressed."

Topics

Love

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I am putting real plums into an imaginary cake.

People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.

On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Nobody in this land, certainly no Christian, can accept hating on a full-time basis; it is apt to reflect back on the hater.

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I combine concrete cynicism with a sort of vague optimism.

She decided she wanted a cool, starchy independent life, with ruffles of humor like window curtains.

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

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Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
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Alexander Pope

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Mary McCarthy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.