Quotes by Phyllis McGinley

“The thing to remember about fathers is, theyre men. A girl has to keep it in mind: They are dragon-seekers, bent on improbable rescues. Scratch any father, you find someone chock-full of qualms and romantic terrors, believing change is a threat -- like your first shoes with heels on, like your first bicycle I it took such months to get.”

“Gossip isnt scandal and its not merely malicious. Its chatter about the human race by lovers of the same.”

“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 passé. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.”

“A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.”

“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 needs 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.”

“Those wearing tolerance for a label call other views intolerable”

“In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime.”

“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.”

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

“Sisters are always drying their hair. Locked into rooms, alone, they pose at the mirror, shoulders bare, trying this way and that their hair, or fly importunate down the stair to answer the telephone.”

“Women are the fulfilled sex. Through our children we are able to produce our own immortality, so we lack that divine restlessness which sends men charging off in pursuit of fortune or fame or an imagined Utopia. That is why we number so few geniuses among us. The wholesome oyster wears no pearl, the healthy whale no ambergris, and as long as we can keep on adding to the race, we harbor a sort of health within ourselves.”

“Getting along with men isnt whats truly important. The vital knowledge is how to get along with one man.”

“Oh, high is the price of parenthood, and daughters may cost you double. You dare not forget, as you thought you could, that youth is a plague and a trouble.”

“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 cant fold a paper in a crowded train.”

“Marriage was all a womans idea and for mans acceptance of the pretty yoke, it becomes us to be grateful.”

“Seventy is wormwood, Seventy is gall But its better to be seventy, Than not alive at all”

“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.”

“Say what you will, making marriage work is a womans 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.”

“The Enemy, who wears her mothers usual face and confidential tone, has access; doubtless stares into her writing case and listens on the phone.”

“I always like to win. But Im the big sister. I want to make sure she has everything, even if I dont have anything. Its hard. I love her too much. Thats what counts.”