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Barbara Holland Biography

Barbara Murray Holland (April 5, 1933 – September 7, 2010) was an American author who wrote in defense of such modern-day vices as cursing, drinking, eating fatty food and smoking cigarettes, as well as a memoir of her time spent growing up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.

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Barbara Holland Quotes

We're a shifty, sliding population. . . . What we refer to as 'home' may be a place we haven't seen in years; a place where there's no one left who knows our name.

Home, Left, Name, Names, Sliding, Years

Life, after we'd had a few millennia to observe it, turned out to be dreadfully unfair, so we invented sports.

Invented, Life, Millennia, Observe, Sports, Unfair

a woman may be called a wife and mother for most of her life, while a man is called a husband and father only at his funeral.

Father, Funeral, Husband, Mother, Woman

Hospitality, or flinging wide the door to friends and wayfarers alike, was once important, back in a world without motels or safety nets, where a friend might find his castle burnt down or a wayfarer find bandits on his trail.

Doors, Important, Nets, Safety, Wayfarer, World

Success in war was the only success that counted; failure was a disgrace to be wiped out only by starting another war and winning it.

Disgrace, Failure, Starting, War, Winning

The nostalgic notion of the family orchards is lovely - all that wholesome fruit for our forebears to sit on the back steps biting into - but basically we were growing it to drink.

Biting, Growing, Lovely, Nostalgic, Orchards

Subtly, in the little ways, joy has been leaking out of our lives. The small pleasures of the ordinary day seem almost contemptible, and glance off us lightly. . . Perhaps it's a good time to reconsider pleasure at its roots. Changing out of wet shoes and socks, for instance. Bathrobes. Yawning and stretching. Real tomatoes.

Real, Roots, Shoes, Small, Stretching, Tomatoes

If we have a decent sort of cat to begin with, and have always treated it courteously, and aren't cursed with meddling, bullying natures, it's a pleasure to let it do as it pleases. With children, this would be wicked and irresponsible, so raising children involves a lot of effort and friction. They need to be taught how to tie their shoes and multiply fractions, they need to be punished for pocketing candy in the grocery store, they need to be washed and combed and forced to clean up their rooms and say please and thank you. A cat is our relief and our reward.

Bullying, Cat, Children, Pocketing, Say

Smiting enemies has always been so admired that, unlike medicine or archaeology, it entitled its successful practitioners to become kings, emperors, and presidents.

Admired, Kings, Medicine, Smiting, Successful

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition claims that a moderate beer drinker - whatever that means - swallows 11 percent of his dietary protein needs, 12 percent of the carbohydrates, 9 percent of essential phosphorus, 7 percent of his riboflavin, and 5 percent of niacin. Should he go on to immoderate beer drinking, he becomes a walking vitamin pill.

Beer, Drinking, Mean, Needs, Percent, Protein

Poets and songwriters speak highly of spring as one of the great joys of life in the temperate zone, but in the real world most of spring is disappointing. We looked forward to it too long, and the spring we had in mind in February was warmer and dryer than the actual spring when it finally arrives. We'd expected it to be a whole season, like winter, instead of a handful of separate moments and single afternoons.

Forward, Like, Long, Real, Spring, Winter

One's own flowers and some of one's own vegetables make acceptable, free, self-congratulatory gifts when visiting friends, though giving zucchini - or leaving it on the doorstep, ringing the bell, and running - is a social faux pas.

Flower, Running, Though, Vegetables, Visiting, Zucchini

Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending.

Joy, Requires, Sturdy, Tending, Weed

Sophistication called for a variety of talents and attitudes, but the minimum requirement was being in New York. Not all New Yorkers achieved it, but nobody elsewhere had a prayer.

Attitude, New York, Prayer, Requirement, Talents, York

No doubt about it, solitude is improved by being voluntary.

Doubt, No Doubt, Solitude, Voluntary

In a proper pub everyone there is potentially, if not a lifelong friend, at least someone to lure into an argument about foreign policy or the Red Sox.

Argument, Potentially, Proper, Pubs, Red

A good-looking piece of scenery anywhere delights the eye and elevates the spirits. Some of us, crude creatures that we are, are merely excited; finer souls draw ethical and spiritual nutrients from the sight.

Spiritual, Eye, Sight, Creatures, Draw, Scenery

There is no 'cat language. ' Painful as it is for us to admit, they don't need one!

Admit, Cat, Communication, Language, Needs, Painful

The only people who still read poetry are poets, and they mostly read their own.

Mostly, People, Poet, Poetry, Poets, Stills

In the metropolitan haunts of the highly sophisticated, the cocktail is no longer an instrument of friendship but a competitive fashion statement, or one-upmanship.

Cocktail, Cocktails, Fashion, Haunts, Sophisticated, Statement

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