Quote

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

Phyllis McGinley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Phyllis McGinley
Age: 72 †
Born: 1905
Born: March 21
Died: 1978
Died: February 22
Author
Poet
Writer
Ontario
Oregon
Phyllis McGinley
Human
Praise
Humans
Exercise
Needs
Wants
Much
Animal
Intrusion
Understanding
Vitamins
Freedom
Mentioned
Littles
Seldom
Little
Privacy

More quotes by Phyllis McGinley

Image
Those wearing Tolerance for a label call other views intolerable.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
What in me is pure conviction is simple prejudice in you.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Behind every myth lies a truth beyond every legend is reality, as radiant (sometimes as chilling) as the story itself.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
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
Image
People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
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.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
A mother's hardest to forgive. Life is the fruit she longs to hand you Ripe on a plate. And while you live, Relentlessly she understands you.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
There is satisfaction in seeing one's household prosper in being both bountiful and provident.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Sin has always been an ugly word, but it has been made so in a new sense over the last half-century. It has been made not only ugly but pass?. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Aunts are discreet, a little shy / By instinct. They forbear to pry.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
These are my daughters, I suppose. But where in the world did the children vanish?
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Kindness is a virtue neither modern nor urban. One almost unlearns it in a city. Towns have their own beatitude they are not unfriendly they offer a vast and solacing anonymity or an equally vast and solacing gregariousness. But one needs a neighbor on whom to practice compassion.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
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
Image
Wherever conversation's flowing, / Why must I feel it falls on me / To keep things going?
Phyllis McGinley
Image
O, merry is the Optimist, With the troops of courage leaguing. But a dour trend In any friend Is somehow less fatiguing.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
The trouble with gardening is that is does not remain an avocation. It becomes an obsession.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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