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. – Marya Mannes
Women are repeatedly accused of taking things personally. I cannot see any other honest way of taking them. – Marya Mannes
People on horses look better than they are. People in cars look worse than they are. – Marya Mannes
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. – Marya Mannes
There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule. – Samuel Butler