We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story.
Mary MccarthyRead
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 ... you really must make the self. It is absolutely useless to look for it, you won't find it, but it's possible in some sense to make it. I don't mean in the sense of making a mask, a Yeatsian mask. But you finally begin in some sense to make and choose the self you want.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quest for self-identity involves actively creating who we are rather than passively searching for an innate self.
In this quote, Mary McCarthy emphasizes that instead of passively searching for one's true self, individuals should take an active role in defining and creating their own identity. As people age, they come to realize that self-identity is not something to be discovered but rather something that can be constructed through choices and experiences, enabling personal growth and authenticity.
Themes
SelfIdentityCreationChoiceAuthenticity
In practice
Example use cases
During a personal development workshop, to emphasize the importance of self-creation.
More from Mary Mccarthy
All quotes →The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass ... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness.
Mary MccarthyRead
Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the."
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Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascination that makes an enlightened person draw near the source of infection, supposedly in a scientific spirit, but really to sniff the vapors and dally with the possibility.
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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.
Mary MccarthyRead
To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.
Mary MccarthyRead
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