Phyllis McGinley Quotes - Page 4

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• Say what you will, making a marriage work is a woman's business.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

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• If childhood is still a state, it is now chiefly a state of confusion.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Confusion, Childhood, States

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

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• Relations are errors that Nature makes. / Your spouse you can put on the shelf. / But your friends, dear friends, are the quaint mistakes / You always commit yourself.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Friends, Mistake, Errors

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• 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.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Mirrors, Hair, Trying

  7 Copy quote

• These are my daughters, I suppose. But where in the world did the children vanish?

  Phyllis McGinley

  Love, Daughter, Children

  Phyllis McGinley, “Sunday Poetry: Ballade Of Lost Objects”

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• Mere wealth, I am above it, / It is the reputation wide, / The playwright's pomp, the poet's pride / That eagerly I covet.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Pride, Reputation, Wealth

  Phyllis McGinley (1946). “Stones from a glass house: new poems by Phyllis McGinley”, Viking Press

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• The successful truck gardener can never go out to dinner in the summer or spend a week end away, because his conscience tells him he has to be at home eating up his corn or packaging his beans for the freezer.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Summer, Home, Successful

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

  Phyllis McGinley

  Reading, Australia Day, Pastime

  16 Copy quote

• Women like other women fine. The more feminine she is, the more comfortable a woman feels with her own sex. It is only the occasional and therefore noticeable adventuress who refuses to make friends with us.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Sex, Women, Feminine

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

  4 Copy quote

• I sing Connecticut, her charms / Of rivers, orchards, blossoming ridges. / I sing her gardens, fences, farms, / Spiders and midges.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Garden, Rivers, Spiders

  7 Copy quote

• I am he / Who champions total liberty - / Intolerance being, ma'am, a state / No tolerant man can tolerate.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Men, Champion, Tolerance

  Phyllis McGinley, “The Angry Man”

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• Gardening has compensations out of all proportion to its goals. It is creation in the pure sense.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Garden, Goal, Creation

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

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• 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 pass?. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.

  Phyllis McGinley

  People, Sick, Immature

  52 Copy quote

• Of course we women gossip on occasion. But our appetite for it is not as avid as a man s. 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

  Flower, Boys, College

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Girl, Sports, Education

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

  7 Copy quote

• For little boys are rancorous
  When robbed of any myth,
  And spiteful and cantankerous
  To all their kin and kith.
  But little girls can draw conclusions
  And profit from their lost illusions.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Girl, Children, Boys

  Phyllis McGinley (1951). “A Short Walk from the Station”

  4 Copy quote

• I have read that during the process of canonization the Catholic Church demands proof of joy in the candidate, and although I have not been able to track down chapter and verse I like the suggestion that dourness is not a sacred attribute.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Track, Joy, Catholic

  Phyllis McGinley, Gerald Durrell (1969). “Birds, beasts, and relatives”, Viking Adult

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• A lover would find life less broken apart after a misguided love affair if they could feel that they had been sinful rather than foolish.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Broken, Ethics, Morality

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• 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

  Men, Jewels, Civilization

  12 Copy quote

• One applauds the industry of professional philanthropy. But it has its dangers. After a while the private heart begins to harden. We fling letters into the wastebasket, are abrupt to telephoned solicitations. Charity withers in the incessant gale.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Heart, Charity, Letters

  Phyllis McGinley, Gerald Durrell (1969). “Birds, beasts, and relatives”, Viking Adult

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• Nothing fails like success; nothing is so defeated as yesterday's triumphant Cause.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Success, Yesterday, Causes

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

  7 Copy quote

• Meek-eyed parents hasten down the ramps To greet their offspring, terrible from camps.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Parent, Ramp, Terrible

  Phyllis McGinley (1951). “A Short Walk from the Station”

  4 Copy quote

• The human animal needs a freedom seldom mentioned, freedom from intrusion. He needs a little privacy as much as he wants understanding or vitamins or exercise or praise.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Exercise, Animal, Understanding

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

  5 Copy quote

• Happiness puts on as many shapes as discontent, and there is nothing odder than the satisfaction of one's neighbor.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Shapes, Satisfaction, Neighbor

  4 Copy quote

• O, merry is the Optimist, With the troops of courage leaguing. But a dour trend In any friend Is somehow less fatiguing.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Optimism, Troops, Trends

  4 Copy quote

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