Quotes by Phyllis McGinley

The subject of the poem was Bridget of Kildare (450-523), a Christian lass among the Druids in Ireland. Saint Bridget was A problem child. Although a lass Demure and mild, And one who strove To please her dad, Saint Bridget drove The family mad. For here's the fault in Bridget lay: She WOULD give everything away. To any soul Whose luck was out She'd give her bowl Of stirabout; She'd give her shawl, Divide her purse With one or all. And what was worse, When she ran out of things to give She'd borrow from a relative. Her father's gold, Her grandsire's dinner, She'd hand to cold and hungry sinner; Give wine, give meat, No matter whose; Take from her feet The very shoes, And when her shoes had gone to others, Fetch forth her sister's and her mother's. She could not quit. She had to share; Gave bit by bit The silverware, The barnyard geese, The parlor rug, Her little niece-'s christening mug, Even her bed to those in want, And then the mattress of her aunt. An easy touch For poor and lowly, She gave so much And grew so holy That when she died Of years and fame, The countryside Put on her name, And still the Isles of Erin fidget With generous girls named Bride or Bridget. Well, one must love her. Nonetheless, In thinking of her Givingness, There's no denial She must have been A sort of trial Unto her kin. The moral, too, seems rather quaint. WHO had the patience of a saint, From evidence presented here? Saint Bridget? Or her near and dear?

Meek-eyed parents hasten down the ramps To greet their offspring, terrible from camps.

Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy.

Sticks and stones are hard on bones, aimed with angry art, words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.

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.

Getting along with men isn't what's truly important. The vital knowledge is how to get along with one man.

Praise is warming and desirable . . . what the human race lives on like bread. But praise is an earned thing. It has to be deserved like an honorary degree or a hug from a child. A compliment is manna, a free gift.

The story tells us, too, That if you cut a pine cone part way through, You find it bears within it like a brand The imprint of His hand.

The trouble with gardening is that is does not remain an avocation. It becomes an obsession.

Men can't be trusted with pruning shears any more than they can be trusted with the grocery money in a delicatessen . . . They are like boys with new pocket knives who will not stop whittling.