Quotes from Marya Mannes

Is there no end to this escalation of desire?

The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason

The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.

By the age of fifty, you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth.

All really great lovers are articulate, and verbal seduction is the surest road to actual seduction.

Borders are scratched across the hearts of men By strangers with a calm, judicial pen, And when the borders bleed we watch with dread The lines of ink across the map turn red.

The curse of the romantic is a greed for dreams, an intensity of expectation that, in the end, diminishes the reality.

The process of maturing is an art to be learned, an effort to be sustained. By the age of fifty you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth.

In aid, the proper attitude is one omitting gratitude.

Women are repeatedly accused of taking things personally. I cannot see any other honest way of taking them.

The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.

The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit.

All really great lovers are articulate, and verbal seduction is the surest road to actual seduction.

It is not enough to show people how to live better: there is a mandate for any group with enormous powers of communication to show people how to be better.

In our society those who are in reality superior in intelligence can be accepted by their fellows only if they pretend they are not.

People on horses look better than they are. People in cars look worse than they are.

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive.

Advertisers in general bear a large part of the responsibility for the deep feelings of inadequacy that drive women to psychiatrists, pills, or the bottle.

For every five well-adjusted and smoothly functioning Americans, there are two who never had the chance to discover themselves. It may well be because they have never been alone with themselves.

If American men are obsessed with money, American women are obsessed with weight. The men talk of gain, the women talk of loss, and I do not know which talk is the more boring.

But the silly male fool is often unaware of how much a look,a touch, a word can hold for a woman.Nor does he seem to have any idea at all of the degree to which their absence can make her cross,resentful ,tiresome." This is from her essay "The Power Men have over Women

Generosity with strings is not generosity; It is a deal.

Plan your work, work your plan.

The earth we abuse and the living things we kill, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.