Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker claims that everything written by a specific person is a lie.
In plain terms
Every word she writes is false.
What can you take from it?
Accusing someone of total dishonesty dismisses their work.

Where it applies

  • literary criticism
  • personal disputes

Putting it to work

  • challenging credibility
  • evaluating sources

Questions to consider

  • What evidence supports this?
  • Why dismiss someone entirely?

Another view

It is an absolute claim that is hard to prove.

More from Mary McCarthy

  1. We all know in our gut that art educates. In other societies, they're aware of the power it has of speaking directly to the masses, teaching them to be better …

    Permalink to quote #28
  2. To be disesteemed by people you don't have much respect for is not the worst fate.

    Permalink to quote #30
  3. As happens with sports and hobbies, his enjoyment was solemnized by expertise, the rites of comparing, collating, a half-deliberate parody of scholarship like …

    Permalink to quote #27

Related quotes

  1. The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

    John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck quote #2
  2. A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.

    Garrison KeillorGarrison Keillor quote #15
  3. For some time I have thought of writing, but I have hesitated until now, for truly, I feared to expose myself to the criticism of men, because I have not studi…

    Saint PatrickSaint Patrick quote #16