Grantly Quotes & Sayings

The newborn has only three demands. They are warmth in the arms of its mother, food from her breasts, and security in the knowledge of her presence. Breatfeeding satisfies all three. — Grantly Dick-Read

I think war is a crime. If you don't believe me, ask the infantry, ask the dead. — Michael McCormick

Perhaps one day, you'll become a man and sail the oceans too. Perhaps you'll find buried treasure and discover new lands of your own. The world lays waiting for your adventures too and we can only dream of what they may be. — Maxwell Grantly

I emphasize this because some of my colleagues, for whose academic attainments I have great respect, argue 'You assume too much; this is not proved; this is not strictly scientific. We disagree with your neurology and your psychiatry is misleading, therefore you must be wrong.' My reply has been, with all humility: 'Yes, of course,' and I have returned to the labor ward to be greeted by happy women with their newborn babies in their arms: 'How right you are, Doctor, it is so much easier that way.' That is what really matters to the clinician. He should use the method that gives the best and safest result from all points of view until something better is discovered. — Grantly Dick-Read

The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside — Samuel Johnson

Don't ever be deceived by the size or the lack of size of an object. Sometimes the smallest can be the mightiest of them all. — Maxwell Grantly

Mrs Grantly after her father's death. This matter, therefore, had been taken out of the warden's hands — Anthony Trollope

Supposed to in one hand, s*** in the other; see what you get the most of- V to Rhage — J.R. Ward

When a child is loved as a child, it does not matter if they are boy or girl, abled-body or disabled, elven or human, true parental love is not skin deep but it penetrates deep down right into the soul. — Maxwell Grantly

What manner of mind considers this holy estate [pregnancy] which women are privileged by the Almighty to attain as a slur upon the social conscience? — Grantly Dick-Read

Don't think that we know everything there is to know. There are secrets to be found and unknown facts to be discovered. Who knows what delights there are to be discovered beyond our current knowledge. — Maxwell Grantly

If you want to be a great director, be a great screenwriter. — Akira Kurosawa

Take Lewis's "argument from desire." He basically argues that we experience desires that no experience in this world seems able to satisfy. And when we see these experiences through the lens of the Christian faith, we realise that this sort of experience is exactly what we would expect if Christianity is true. — Alister E. McGrath

There is a persistent funny form of suspicion in most of us that we can solve our own problems and be the masters of our own ships of life, but the fact of the matter is that by ourselves we can only be consumed by our problems and suffer the shipwreck. — Harry Stack Sullivan

Oddly my name has been no professional help at all! It seems to have made no difference. I admire him hugely, both for his benevolence and his enormous psychological perception. — Joanna Trollope

Sometimes you have to close your eyes to see more clearly. Magical things are easier to see if your eyes are closed. — Maxwell Grantly

According to the historian John LeDonne, "The existence of a national network of families and client systems made a mockery of the rigid hierarchy established by legislative texts in a constant search for administrative order and 'regularity.' It explained why the Russian government, more than any other, was a government of men and not of laws."28 — Francis Fukuyama

Here's the problem: Profiteers haunt America, and for everything we try to control, someone's going to profit from it, more than you control it. — Will.i.am

It is not only that we want to bring about an easy labor, without risking injury to the mother or the child; we must go further. We must understand that childbirth is fundamentally a spiritual, as well as a physical, achievement ... The birth of a child is the ultimate perfection of human love. — Grantly Dick-Read

Just when we thought everything was going to be okay, we all fell apart. — Jenny Han

If left alone in labor, the body of a woman produces most easily the baby that is not interfered with by its mother's mind or the assistant's hand. If left alone, just courage and patience are required. — Grantly Dick-Read

You've got to have a deep yearning for the answer if you ever want to truly learn something really well. If something has no value, it's simply not appreciated. — Maxwell Grantly

There's beauty all around us if only we stop and search for it. — Maxwell Grantly

I just fell in love with the integrity of the music & that was it. — Tierney Sutton

A week is a long time in the life of a child. — Maxwell Grantly

The women in labor must have NO STRESS placed upon her. She must be free to move about, walk, rock, go to the bathroom by herself, lie on her side or back, squat or kneel, or anything she finds comfortable, without fear of being scolded or embarrassed. Nor is there any need for her to be either 'quiet' or 'good.' What is a 'good' patient? One who does whatever she is told-who masks all the stresses she is feeling? Why can she not cry, or laugh, or complain? — Grantly Dick-Read

What we got,' Kelly said, 'we're stuck with it, even if our stubborn, rational brains might decide we're through. It'll always be there, whether we like it or not. — Cara McKenna

Many women have described their experiences of childbirth as being associated with a spiritual uplifting, the power of which they have never previously been aware. To such a woman, childbirth is a monument of joy within her memory. She turns to it in thought to seek again an ecstasy which passed too soon. — Grantly Dick-Read

The minds of small children are more interested in clockwork trains, jumping in puddles and other important childhood endeavours. — Maxwell Grantly

Fear can be overcome only by Faith. — Grantly Dick-Read

No other natural bodily function is painful and childbirth should not be an exception — Grantly Dick-Read

Dr Grantly is by no means a bad man; he is exactly the man which such an education as his was most likely to form; his intellect being sufficient for such a place in the world, but not sufficient to put him in advance of it. — Anthony Trollope

Male science disregards female experiences because it can never share them. — Grantly Dick-Read

It is as great a crime to leave a woman alone in her agony and deny her relief from her suffering as it is to insist upon dulling the consciousness of a natural mother who desires above all things to be aware of the final reward of her efforts, whose ambition is to be present, in full possession of her senses, when the infant she already adores greets her with its first loud cry and the soft touch of its restless body upon her limbs. — Grantly Dick-Read

Great things await you. You have a lifetime of amazing dreams to fulfil and noble ambitions to achieve — Maxwell Grantly

Let me tell you a secret, a tremendous and wonderful secret. Let me share with you something so valuable that any schoolboy would gladly trade his most treasured procession to find out what I shall tell you. — Maxwell Grantly

When I was in Utah there, first learning the kind of music I love, my favorite singer was T. Texas Tyler. So my friend, Norman Ritchie, the traveling teenage sage, started calling me U. Utah Phillips. — Utah Phillips