Explore Quotes by Margaret Halsey

Humility is not my forte, and whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.

He has the common feeling of his profession. He enjoys a statement twice as much if it appears in fine print, and anything that turns up in a footnote... takes on the character of divine revelation.

I was well warned about English food, so it did not surprise me, but I do wonder sometimes, how they ever manage to prise it up long enough to get a plate under it.

The role of a do-gooder is not what actors call a fat part.

Bulldogs have been known to fall on their swords when confronted by my superior tenacity.

Listening to Britons dining out is like watching people play first-class tennis with imaginary balls.

What I know about money, I learned the hard way – by having had it.

The stress laid on upward social mobility in the United States has tended to obscure the fact that there can be more than one kind of mobility and more than one direction in which it can go. There can be ethical mobility as well as financial, and it can go down as well as up.

Living in England, provincial England, must be like being married to a stupid but exquisitely beautiful wife.

Some persons talk simply because they think sound is more manageable than silence.

In some circumstances, the refusal to be defeated is a refusal to be educated.

The great disadvantage of being in a rat race is that it is humiliating. The competitors in a rat race are by definition rodents.

The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality

The English never smash in a face. They merely refrain from asking it to dinner.

The attitude of the English towards English history reminds one a good deal of the attitude of a Hollywood director towards love.

Reality is above all else a variable, and nobody is qualified to say that he or she knows exactly what it is. As a matter of fact, with a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.

He must have had a magnificent build before his stomach went in for a career of its own.

Working with children is the easiest part of educating for democracy, because children are still undefeated and have no stake in being prejudiced.

Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.