Mary McGrory Quotes

#1. Haldeman is the only man in America in this generation who let his hair grow for a courtroom appearance.

Mary McGrory

#2. Baseball has a special place in our hearts. It is the game that shows us as we would like to be.

Mary McGrory

#3. We have a new class in this country: the deserving rich ... The deserving rich do nice things for each other. Comforting the unafflicted is something that comes naturally to them.

Mary McGrory

#4. Dogs, bless them, operate on the premise that human beings are fragile and require incessant applications of affection and reassurance. The random lick of a hand and the furry chin draped over the instep are calculated to let the shaky owner know that a friend is nearby.

Mary McGrory

#5. [On Senator Everett Dirksen:] His great enemy was boredom and he won every engagement.

Mary McGrory

#6. Baseball is what we were, football is what we have become.

Mary McGrory

#7. You need the will to disarm the civilian population. If we can do it in Somalia, we can do it here.

Mary McGrory

#8. If there is a secret to writing, I haven't found it yet. All I know is you need to sit down, clear your mind, and hang in there.

Mary McGrory

#9. [On Italy:] ... the country where kindness to strangers is a religion, you can't turn your head without seeing something beautiful, and you can't get a bad meal if you try.

Mary McGrory

#10. [On George H.W. Bush vs. Michael Dukakis:] Americans now know they can vote for a man who can't express his thoughts or a man who can't express his feelings.

Mary McGrory

#11. Human sacrifice is much in vogue right now. The Republican right thinks that people who get on its nerves, especially women, should be sent to the stake ...

Mary McGrory

#12. Appliances have idiosyncracies, just like us. Unfortunately they have picked up our less attractive traits - they are proud, spiteful, and unforgiving.

Mary McGrory

#13. My friend Phil has a theory that the Lord, having made teenagers, felt constrained to make amends and so created the golden retriever.

Mary McGrory

#14. [On men:] On their best days, the best of them are eight years old.

Mary McGrory

#15. Baseball is what we were, and football is what we have become.

Mary McGrory

#16. I am hoping for better times. That's how you know us hapless gardeners - by our dirty fingernails and our absurd, unquenchable optimism about next year.

Mary McGrory

#17. And the propensity of weak and empty people to follow a leader into the darkness from which there is no return is still flourishing, as ever.

Mary McGrory