Quotes from Phyllis McGinley

The knowingness of little girls, is hidden underneath their curls.

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.

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.

God know that a mother need fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul.

A mother's hardest to forgive.Life is the fruit she longs to hand youRipe on a plate. And while you live, Relentlessly she understands you.

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.

In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime.

Compromise if not the spice of life is its solidity.

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

Shunning the upstart shower, / The cold and cursory scrub, / I celebrate the power / That lies within the Tub.

Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart.

Those wearing tolerance for a label call other views intolerable.

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

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.

When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion.

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.

Nothing fails like success nothing is so defeated as yesterday's triumphant cause.

Seventy is wormwood, Seventy is gall But its better to be seventy, Than not alive at all.

Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing, peace is the measure.

Please to put a nickel, please to put a dime. How petitions trickle in at Christmas time!

Ladies with curly hair / Have time to spare.

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

Time is the thief you cannot banish.

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.