Phyllis McGinley Quotes - Page 3

Of the small gifts of heaven, / It seems to me a more than equal share / At birth was given / To girls with curly hair.

Oh, princes thrive on caviar, the poor on whey and curds, / And politicians, I infer, must eat their windy words. / It's crusts that feed the virtuous, it's cake that comforts sinners, / But writers live on bread and praise at Literary Dinners.

It's hard / Keeping up with the avant-garde.

Tomorrow will come and today will pass, / But the hearts of the young are brittle as glass.

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.

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 It is old and it is young, very green in summer, very white in winter, gregarious, withdrawn and at once both sophisticated and provincial.

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.

There are books that one needs maturity to enjoy just as there are books an adult can come on too late to savor.

It's this no-nonsense side of women that is pleasant to deal with. They are the real sportsmen.

Men can't be trusted with pruning shears any more than they can be trusted with the grocery money in a delicatessen . . . They are like boys with new pocket knives who will not stop whittling.

Women are not men's equals in anything except responsibility. We are not their inferiors, either, or even their superiors. We are quite simply different races.

Sometimes I have a notion that what might improve the situation is to have women take over the occupations of government and trade and to give men their freedom.

Ladies with curly hair / Have time to spare.

For the hearts of nurses are solid gold, / But their heels are flat and their hands are cold, / And their voices lilt with a lilt that's falser / Than the smile of an exhibition waltzer. / Yes, nurses can cure you, nurses restore you, / But nurses are bound that they do things for you.

Aunts are discreet, a little shy / By instinct. They forbear to pry.

Meanness inherits a set of silverware and keeps it in the bank. Economy uses it only on important occasions, for fear of loss. Thrift sets the table with it every night for pure pleasure, but counts the butter spreaders before they are put away.

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.

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

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

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.

Marriage is a lot of things-an alliance, a sacrament, a comedy, or a mistake; but it is definitely not a partnership because that implies equal gain. And every right-thinking woman knows the profit in matrimony is by all odds hers.

suffering is as necessary to entertaining as vermouth is to a Martini - a small but vital ingredient.

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

There is satisfaction in seeing one's household prosper; in being both bountiful and provident.

Ah! some love Paris, / And some Purdue. / But love is an archer with a low I.Q. / A bold, bad bowman, and innocent of pity. / So I'm in love with / New York City.