Marya Mannes
Marya Mannes
Marya Manneswas an American author and critic, known for her caustic but insightful observations of American life. Mannes also wrote under the pen name of, "Sec."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth14 November 1904
CountryUnited States of America
expression desire admission
Flirtation is merely an expression of considered desire coupled with an admission of its impracticability.
across along bleed borders dread hearts ink judicial lines map men red scratched strangers turn watch
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
busy difference extra full giant kidding tall
Who's kidding whom? What's the difference between Giant and Jumbo? Quart and full quart? Two-ounce and big two-ounce? What does Extra Long mean? What's a tall 24-inches? And what busy shopper can tell?
age american-journalist
By the age of fifty, you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth.
american-journalist faucet leave listen
Lie down and listen to the crabgrass grow The faucet leak, and learn to leave them so.
actual american-journalist great surest verbal
All really great lovers are articulate, and verbal seduction is the surest road to actual seduction.
eye painting moments
A seventeenth-century painting can be "modern" because the living eye finds it fresh and new. A "modern" painting can be outdated because it was a product of the moment and not of time.
lasts next hold-me
The right to choose death when life no longer holds meaning is not only the next liberation but the last human right.
race people car
the car, by bisecting the human outline, diminishes it, producing a race of half-people in a motion not of their own making
change fear progress
Human progress had so often been checked by those who were afraid of losing what they had.
sex men fire
flirtation ... is a graceful salute to sex, a small impermanent spark between one human being and another, between a man and a woman not in need of fire.
art men discovery
The art of flirtation is dying. A man and woman are either in love these days or just friends. In the realm of love, reticence and sophistication should go hand in hand, for one of the joys of life is discovery. Nowadays, instead of progressing from vous to tu, from Mister to Jim, it's 'darling' and 'come to my place' in the first hour.
love-is games dating
In an age where the lowered eyelid is just a sign of fatigue, the delicate game of love is pining away. Freud and flirtation are poor companions.
fear superstitions bogs
fear has always been a diminisher of life. Whether bred in the bogs of superstition or clothed in the brocades of dogma and ritual, the specter of death has reduced the living to supplicants, powerless.