In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime. Phyllis McGinley More Quotes by Phyllis McGinley More Quotes From Phyllis McGinley 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 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. Phyllis McGinley cost daughter mom These are my daughters, I suppose. But where in the world did the children vanish? Phyllis McGinley daughter love children 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 ethics morality broken 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 phones mother writing Time is the thief you cannot banish. Phyllis McGinley aging thieves The thing to remember about fathers is, they're 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 took such months to get. Phyllis McGinley daughter girl father Marriage was all a woman's idea and for man's acceptance of the pretty yoke, it becomes us to be grateful. Phyllis McGinley grateful marriage acceptance 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 college boys A bit of trash now and then is good for the severest reader. It provides the necessary roughage in the literary diet. Phyllis McGinley trash now-and-then reader Please to put a nickel, please to put a dime. How petitions trickle in at Christmas time! Phyllis McGinley nickels dimes christmas Children are forced to live very rapidly in order to live at all. They are given only a few years in which to learn hundreds of thousands of things about life and the planet and themselves. Phyllis McGinley helping-others order children 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 gentleman brain baby 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. Phyllis McGinley marriage mistake thinking Happiness puts on as many shapes as discontent, and there is nothing odder than the satisfaction of one's neighbor. Phyllis McGinley neighbor shapes satisfaction Love or perish" we are told and we tell ourselves. The phrase is true enough so long as we do not interpret it as "Mingle or be a failure. Phyllis McGinley phrases enough long Gossip isn't scandal and it's not merely malicious. It's chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Phyllis McGinley gossip scandal race Tomorrow will come and today will pass, / But the hearts of the young are brittle as glass. Phyllis McGinley glasses heart today 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 reputation wealth pride 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 catholic joy