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

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

By the age of fifty, you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth.
Marya Mannes

For every five well-adjusted and smoothly functioning Americans, there are two who never had the chance to discover themselves. It may well be because they have never been alone with themselves.
Marya Mannes

It's never what you say, but how you make it sound sincere.
Marya Mannes

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.
Marya Mannes

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

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.
Marya Mannes