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Phyllis McGinley Quotes

Author

Phyllis McGinley was an American author known for her humorous and warm-hearted prose. Her works often revolve around the theme of daily life, winning widespread acclaim for their unique perspective and profound insight.

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All Men Needs Children Humans Girl Heart Knows People Women Cold Daughter Feels Ifs Littles Long Lost Lovers Marriage Mind Mom

Famous Phyllis McGinley Quotes

“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.”

People Years Children Helping Order Given Planets Helping Others Helping Other People

Author: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 that they can live austerely in some stone tower of adolescence, their privacies unviolated.”

Want Feels Children Whole Strange Ten Ambition Understood Stones Twenties Aliens Privacy Towers Adolescence Misinterpreted

Author:Phyllis McGinley

“For little boys are rancorous When robbed of any myth, And spiteful and cantankerous To all their kin and kith. But little girls can draw conclusions And profit from their lost illusions.”

Children Littles Girl Lost Boys Draws Illusion Profit Myth Conclusion Little Boys Spiteful

Book:A Short Walk from the Station

Source: A Short Walk from the Station

“Praise is warming and desirable. But it is an earned thing. It has to be deserved, like a hug from a child.”

Children Praise Hug Desirable

Author: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.”

Knows Needs Humans Children Soul Enough Seems Happens Mother Parent Women Virtue Aspect Praise Brave Motherhood Tolerance Flexibility Fortitude God Knows Human Soul Firmness

Author:Phyllis McGinley

“These are my daughters, I suppose. But where in the world did the children vanish?”

World Love Children Daughter My Daughter Parents Love

Author:Phyllis McGinley

“Women are the fulfilled sex. Through our children we are able to produce our own immortality, so we lack that divine restlessness which sends men charging off in pursuit of fortune or fame or an imagined Utopia. That is why we number so few geniuses among us. The wholesome oyster wears no pearl, the healthy whale no ambergris, and as long as we can keep on adding to the race, we harbor a sort of health within ourselves.”

Source: The province of the heart

About the Author

Born: March 21, 1905
Died: February 22, 1978
Known for: Author
Quotes: 106

Books & Sources

The province of the heartRelated source material

Sixpence in Her ShoeRelated source material

A Short Walk from the StationRelated source material

Birds, beasts, and relativesRelated source material

Stones from a glass house: new poems by Phyllis McGinleyRelated source material

Wonders and surprises: a collection of poemsRelated source material

On the contraryRelated source material

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