Mary McCarthy Quotes

Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look.

I'm very interested in how we take ownership of our own stories and our own lives.

We are the hero of our own story.

Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we're all heroes of our own lives.

Don't forget, you are the hero of your own story.

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.

We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.

I'm a minor player in my own life story.

Everyone's the hero in their own story. You've lived your life. You're the good guy of your life, the protagonist of your own movie. Everyone knows that they have more in them to offer than they sometimes show.

It may be that the most interesting American struggle is the struggle to set oneself free from the limits one is born to, and then to learn something of the value of those limits.

People in life take on certain stories and say, 'I'm going to be defined by this story and I'm going to live up to every inch of this story.' Sometimes you realize the story isn't fulfilling you and in fact you're not living the life that you're given.

Every character is asking: 'What's my place? Why am I here? I don't want the answer to be 'Just because.' You find your own purpose. Each finds the reason to be here and how to contribute.

I want the subject to be in control. Because they will give me something I couldn't possibly know about them.

We are all the writer-director-star-producer of our own life. We see life through our own eyes.

You come to realize that only one person can tell you what's expected of you, and that's you.

I think we all see ourselves as the heroes in our own lives.

One creates oneself.

Everyone is necessarily the hero of their own imagination.

The stories I want to tell are when we're our own heroes and our own enemies, and I don't think that's a rude thing to ask for. I don't think that's something I should apologize for.

Who do you want to be: the radical man who can make a choice in one second, or the man who never takes decisions? That's the question: who's the best? Actually, there is no best.

Nobody else can tell you what you are.

I have lived life enough to know that I define myself.

No one can tell you who you are and what you are made of, only you yourself know what you are made of, and only you yourself can do the work to become who you want to be.

You and I have that same power at our disposal every moment of the day. At the moment, the questions that we ask ourselves can shape our perception of who we are, what we're capable of, and what we're willing to do to achieve our dreams.

Look directly into every mirror. Realize our reflection is the first sentence to a story, and our story starts: We were here.