A Quote by Mary McCarthy

The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is the fact that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable. ... No nation with any sense of material well-being would endure the food we eat, the cramped apartments we live in, the noise, the traffic, the crowded subways and buses. American life, in large cities, at any rate, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves.
The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable.
American life, in large cities, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves; it is out of asceticism, out of unworldliness, precisely, that we bear it.
The growth of the American food industry will always bump up against this troublesome biological fact: Try as we might, each of us can only eat about fifteen hundred pounds of food a year. Unlike many other products - CDs, say, or shoes - there's a natural limit to how much food we each can consume without exploding. What this means for the food industry is that its natural rate of growth is somewhere around 1 percent per year - 1 percent being the annual growth rate of American population. The problem is that [the industry] won't tolerate such an anemic rate of growth.
If I'm a lush at anything, it's food and drink. I'm not materialistic in any way, but I value food.
Civilization has taught man how to live in dense crowds, and by that very fact those crowds are likely ultimately to constitute a majority of the world’s population. Already there are many who prefer this crowded life, but there are others who do not, and these will gradually be eliminated. Life in the crowded conditions of cities has many unattractive features, but in the long run these may be overcome, not so much by altering them, but simply by changing the human race into liking them.
The materialistic pattern of life is that where money predominates over everything. The non-materialistic life is that where money is just a means - happiness predominates, joy predominates; your own individuality predominates. You know who you are and where you are going, and you are not distracted. Then suddenly you will see your life has a meditative quality to it.
Any American who joins al Qaeda will know full well that they have joined an organization that is at war with the United States. Any American who did that should know well that they in fact are part of an enemy... and that the U.S. will do anything that is possible to destroy that enemy to save American lives.
Any point of view is interesting that is a direct impression of life. You each have an impression colored by your individual conditions; make that into a picture, a picture framed by your own personal wisdom, your glimpse of the American world.
Honestly, I want to live a calm life without being in the press. I want to be like any other American citizen who gets a speeding ticket or has an argument with his spouse... and doesn't have the whole world know.
One of the most important virtues of the American character is our ability to approach the complexities that life presents us with common sense and decency, .. The considered judgment of the American people is not going to rise or fall on the fine distinctions of a legal argument but on straight talk and the truth. It is time for the president and the Congress to follow that common sense for the good of the country.
The idea of an isolated American painting , so popular in this country during the thirties, seems absurd to me, just as the idea of a purely American mathematics or physics would seem absurd... And in another sense, the problem doesn't exist at all; or, if it did, would solve itself: An American is an American and his painting would naturally be qualified by the fact, whether he wills or not. But the basic problems of contemporary painting are independent of any one country.
That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and as a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American, we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, if we’ve progressed as a society, then you don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself.
The fact remains that the materialistic view is a truncated view of reality.
The materialistic idealism that governs American life, that on the one hand makes a chariot of every grocery wagon, and on the other a mere hitching post of every star, lets every man lead a very enticing double life.
According to materialistic science, any memory requires a material substrate, such as the neuronal network in the brain or the DNA molecules of the genes.
We have a largely materialistic lifestyle characterized by a materialistic culture. However, this only provides us with temporary, sensory satisfaction, whereas long-term satisfaction is based not on the senses but on the mind. That’s where real tranquility is to be found. And peace of mind turns out to be a significant factor in our physical health too.
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