Gossip isn't scandal and it's not merely malicious. It's chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Phyllis McGinley More Quotes by Phyllis McGinley More Quotes From Phyllis McGinley God knows that a mother needs fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul. But because I happen to be a parent of almost fiercely maternal nature, I praise casualness. It seems to me the rarest of virtues. It is useful enough when children are small. It is useful to the point of necessity when they are adolescents. Phyllis McGinley women mother children The knowingness of little girls, is hidden underneath their curls. Phyllis McGinley daughter girl mom Praise is warming and desirable. But it is an earned thing. It has to be deserved, like a hug from a child. Phyllis McGinley hug praise children A bookworm in bed with a new novel and a good reading lamp is as much prepared for pleasure as a pretty girl at a college dance. Phyllis McGinley girl reading college In a successful marriage, there is no such thing as one's way. There is only the way of both, only the bumpy, dusty, difficult, but always mutual path. Phyllis McGinley marriage successful way The mass of men live lives of quiet exasperation. Phyllis McGinley live-life quiet men Rain is my lover, my apple strudel. / It haunts my heels like a pedigreed poodle. / Beyond the seas or across the nation, / It follows me faithful on every vacation. Phyllis McGinley vacation rain travel Behind every myth lies a truth; beyond every legend is reality, as radiant (sometimes as chilling) as the story itself. Phyllis McGinley stories lying reality Children from ten to twenty don't want to be understood. Their whole ambition is to feel strange and alien and misinterpreted so that they can live austerely in some stone tower of adolescence, their privacies unviolated. Phyllis McGinley twenties ambition children There are books that one needs maturity to enjoy just as there are books an adult can come on too late to savor. Phyllis McGinley maturity adults book Borrow my umbrellas, my clothes, my money, and I will likely not think of them again. But borrow my books and I will be on your track like a bloodhound until they are returned. Phyllis McGinley clothes book thinking It's this no-nonsense side of women that is pleasant to deal with. They are the real sportsmen. Phyllis McGinley nonsense real sides 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. Phyllis McGinley knives men boys 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. Phyllis McGinley race responsibility men How happy is the Optimist / To whom life shows its sunny side / His horse may lose, his ship may list, / But he always sees the funny side. Phyllis McGinley optimism horse may Wherever conversation's flowing, / Why must I feel it falls on me / To keep things going? Phyllis McGinley feels conversation fall 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. Phyllis McGinley voice heart hands Aunts are discreet, a little shy / By instinct. They forbear to pry. Phyllis McGinley aunt shy littles To be a housewife is a difficult, a wrenching, sometimes an ungrateful job if it is looked on only as a job. Regarded as a profession, it is the noblest as it is the most ancient of the catalogue. Let none persuade us differently or the world is lost indeed. Phyllis McGinley ungrateful jobs world I sing Connecticut, her charms / Of rivers, orchards, blossoming ridges. / I sing her gardens, fences, farms, / Spiders and midges. Phyllis McGinley spiders garden rivers
