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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote contrasts the concepts of exile and refugee, emphasizing the respect given to individual choice versus the perceived helplessness of the masses.
Mary McCarthy's quote dives into the nuanced differentiation between exiles and refugees, highlighting how society views these two groups. Exiles are often seen as individuals who made a deliberate choice to leave their homeland, suggesting agency and autonomy, while refugees are often viewed collectively, associated with victimhood and a lack of power over their circumstances. This distinction hints at deeper social implications concerning identity and the respect afforded to personal choices amid crisis.
Themes
ExileRefugeeChoiceHelplessnessSocial Standing
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on immigration policy at a community forum, this quote can highlight the importance of understanding individual circumstances.
More from Mary Mccarthy
All quotes →Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the."
Mary MccarthyRead
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.
Mary MccarthyRead
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
You mustn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.
Mary MccarthyRead
Similar quotes
No one should ever know where conduct ends and acting begins. Conduct unbecoming. That's what acting is.
Peter O'TooleRead
One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero.
Charlie ChaplinRead
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth. Our children know and suffer the armed men.
Stephen Vincent BenetRead
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants. A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.
LaoziRead
It offended his sense of himself, because he was an individual from an age of individuals, and a string of lights was, like him, an individual thing. No matter how little the thing had cost, to throw it away was to deny its value.
Jonathan FranzenRead
When I was modelling, I spent half my life staring at thousands of perfect reflections. It got to a stage where I was losing all sense of reality - so after I quit modelling, I took all the mirrors out of my house.
Grace JonesRead