Quotes by Marya Mannes

“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 along the map turn red.”

“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.”

“It's never what you say, but how you make it sound sincere.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“One is as one is and the love that can't encompass both is a poor sort of love.”

“Is there no end to this escalation of desire?”

“It's never what you say but how you make it sound sincere.”

“Generosity with strings is not generosity: it is a deal.”

“You cannot know what you cannot feel.”

“To lead means to direct and to exact and no man dares do either - he might be unpopular. What authority we are given now is a trinity: the grin the generality and God (the Word).”

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

“It is privilege of living to be ... acutely agonizingly conscious of the moment that is always present and always passing.”

“In aid, the proper attitude is one omitting gratitude.”

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

“One is as one is and the love that can't encompass both is a poor sort of love.”

“It's never what you say but how you make it sound sincere.”