Phyllis McGinley Quotes

Found 42 quotes by Phyllis McGinley.
[ Page 1 of 2 ]

«« First « Previous

1 2

Next » Last »»

"Marriage was all a woman's idea and for man's acceptance of the pretty yoke, it becomes us to be grateful."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: Acceptance American Author

"A lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe, she can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby, she can use her intuition instead of her brain, but she can't fold a paper in a crowded train."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: American Author Babies

"Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: American Author

"Gossip isn't scandal and it's not merely malicious. It's chatter about the human race by lovers of the same."

Phyllis McGinley

"Who could deny that privacy is a jewel? It has always been the mark of privilege, the distinguishing feature of a truly urbane culture. Out of the cave, the tribal teepee, the pueblo, the community fortress, man emerged to build himself a house of his own with a shelter in it for himself and his diversions. Every age has seen it so. The poor might have to huddle together in cities for need's sake, and the frontiersman cling to his neighbors for the sake of protection. But in each civilization, as it advanced, those who could afford it chose the luxury of a withdrawing-place."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: Privacy

"The East is a montage. It is old and it is young, very green in summer, very white in winter, gregarious, withdrawn and at once both sophisticated and provincial."

Phyllis McGinley

"When blithe to argument I come, / Though armed with facts, and merry, / May Providence protect me from / The fool as adversary, / Whose mind to him a kingdom is / Where reason lacks dominion, / Who calls conviction prejudice / And prejudice opinion."

Phyllis McGinley

"Those wearing tolerance for a label call other views intolerable"

Phyllis McGinley Topics: Tolerance

"Praise is warming and desirable. But it is an earned thing. It has to be deserved, like a hug from a child."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: American Author Praise

"A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: American Author

"The system -- the American one, at least -- is a vast and noble experiment. It has been polestar and exemplar for other nations. But from kindergarten until she graduates from college the girl is treated in it exactly like her brothers. She studies the same subjects, becomes proficient at the same sports. Oh, it is a magnificent lore she learns, education for the mind beyond anything Jane Austen or Saint Theresa or even Mrs. Pankhurst ever dreamed. It is truly Utopian. But Utopia was never meant to exist on this disheveled planet."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: Education

"Say what you will, making marriage work is a woman's business. The institution was invented to do her homage; it was contrived for her protection. Unless she accepts it as such /as a beautiful, bountiful, but quite unequal association /the going will be hard indeed."

Phyllis McGinley

"I do not know who first invented the myth of sexual equality. But it is a myth willfully fostered and nourished by certain semi-scientists and other fiction writers. And it has done more, I suspect, to unsettle marital happiness than any other false doctrine of this myth-ridden age."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: Equality Men And Women

"Sin has always been an ugly word, but it has been made so in a new sense over the last half-century. It has been made not only ugly but passÃÂ©. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick."

Phyllis McGinley

"Frigidity is largely nonsense. It is this generation's catchword, one only vaguely understood and constantly misused. Frigid women are few. There is a host of diffident and slow-ripening ones."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: Frigidity

"Getting along with men isn't what's truly important. The vital knowledge is how to get along with one man."

Phyllis McGinley

"Please to put a nickel, please to put a dime. How petitions trickle in at Christmas time!"

Phyllis McGinley Topics: American Author

"Of course we women gossip on occasion. But our appetite for it is not as avid as a mans. It is in the boys gyms, the college fraternity houses, the club locker rooms, the paneled offices of business that gossip reaches its luxuriant flower."

Phyllis McGinley

"In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: American Author

"Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shoptalk of the scientist and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: Wit

"The Enemy, who wears her mother's usual face and confidential tone, has access; doubtless stares into her writing case and listens on the phone."

Phyllis McGinley Topics: Mothers

«« First « Previous

1 2

Next » Last »»