Phyllis McGinley

Rain is my lover, my apple strudel. / It haunts my heels like a pedigreed poodle. / Beyond the seas or across…

— Phyllis McGinley

The human animal needs a freedom seldom mentioned, freedom from intrusion. He needs a little privacy as much as he wants understanding…

— Phyllis McGinley

Women like other women fine. The more feminine she is, the more comfortable a woman feels with her own sex. It is…

— Phyllis McGinley

Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shoptalk of the scientist and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual.…

— Phyllis McGinley

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

— Phyllis McGinley

Sons do not need you. They are always out of your reach, Walking strange waters.

— Phyllis McGinley

History must always be taken with a grain of salt. It is, after all, not a science but an art.

— Phyllis McGinley

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

— Phyllis McGinley

Cocktail parties ... are usually not parties at all but mass ceremonials designed to clear up at one great stroke a wealth…

— Phyllis McGinley

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

— Phyllis McGinley

Children are forced to live very rapidly in order to live at all. They are given only a few years in which…

— Phyllis McGinley

The successful truck gardener can never go out to dinner in the summer or spend a week end away, because his conscience…

— Phyllis McGinley

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

— Phyllis McGinley

The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a…

— Phyllis McGinley

Who could deny that privacy is a jewel? It has always been the mark of privilege, the distinguishing feature of a truly…

— Phyllis McGinley

Pressed for rules and verities, All i recolelct are these: Feed a cold and starve a fever. Argue with no true believer.…

— Phyllis McGinley

Scratch any father, you find / Someone chock-full of qualms and romantic terrors, / Believing change is a threat.

— Phyllis McGinley

Children from ten to twenty don't want to be understood. Their whole ambition is to feel strange and alien and misinterpreted so…

— Phyllis McGinley

Of the small gifts of heaven, / It seems to me a more than equal share / At birth was given /…

— Phyllis McGinley

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

— Phyllis McGinley

When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose…

— Phyllis McGinley

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

— Phyllis McGinley

How happy is the Optimist / To whom life shows its sunny side / His horse may lose, his ship may list,…

— Phyllis McGinley

Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity.

— Phyllis McGinley

For little boys are rancorous When robbed of any myth, And spiteful and cantankerous To all their kin and kith. But little…

— Phyllis McGinley