Phil McGraw Quotes

I just am not good at math.

Eighty percent of all choices are based on fear. Most people don’t choose what they want; they choose what they think is safe.

Take it from a guy: If you’re in love with somebody, you will swim the stream, you will climb the mountain, you will slay the dragon. You’re going to get to her somehow, some way.

You have got to decide, look, this is who I am; this is my best way to present myself, and I’m going to ride that horse to the finish line. Not everybody will like it, but that’s OK.

Life is a full-contact sport, and there’s a score up on the board.

I have some wonderful friends from the Mideast that are as red, white and blue as anybody you know, that have been harassed, and I think it’s a terrible, terrible thing.

It’s hard to see your own face without a mirror.

Well, let me tell you, if you’re 45, had three children and are post-menopausal, you’re not going to weigh what you did the day you graduated from high school. Get that out of your head. That’s a media-driven ideal that you’re never going to healthfully obtain.

When you get married, your loyalty, first and foremost, is to your spouse, and to the family that you create together.

I think every parent, every generation has wanted their children to do better and have a higher standard of living. But I think there’s too much guilt.

As parents we’re not nearly as computer literate as our children are.

People are used to being coddled.

If your neighbor has a completely different view on abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, all of those things, you still are both Americans. Neither one of you is necessarily more patriotic than the other. Neither loves their country any more than the other one does.

Don’t wait until you’re in a crisis to come up with a crisis plan.

Food is a coping mechanism; people are afraid of giving it up because then they’ll feel confused and lost.

I mean, look, teachers don’t do their job for the money, obviously, because we pay them ridiculously little amounts for what they put in. Most of them come out of their own pocket for materials and things to help the children and all that.

We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we’re capable of.

My dad used to say, ‘You wouldn’t worry so much about what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.

The truth is, I think we are a self-less society, not a selfish society. Because we’re so busy now.

The Internet is just bringing all kinds of information into the home. There’s just a lot of distraction, a lot of competition for the parent’s voice to resonate in the children’s ears.

I mean, if you degrade someone, you isolate them, you control them, you call them names, you demean them. That’s a horrible existence for people.

If you’re trying to get out of debt, you have to be willing to treat everything as expendable.

At the end of the day, whether or not those people are comfortable with how you’re living your life doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you’re comfortable with it.

It’s better to be healthy alone than sick with someone else.

I’m one of those that believes you can’t be one kind of a man and another kind of president.

I’ve talked to so many people, men and women alike, that get overweight and their self-esteem just goes in the tank. They think they’re judged. They think they’re unattractive.

Awareness without action is worthless.

I’ve learned a tremendous amount from Oprah.

I don’t care how pumped up or psyched you are to start a new diet or a new program – that emotion will fade.

Now, my body fat runs around 18 percent, which is normal and, you know, kind of in the middle of normal, actually.

I think you’re running into a lot of trouble if your idea of foreplay is, ‘Brace yourself honey, here I come!’

I think I’ve got the best staff in television.

I don’t substitute anybody else’s judgment for my own.

If I was on the air and was just kind of a plain-vanilla personality that took the safe road and the safe way trying to please all of the people all of the time, I’d been gone in two weeks.

Parents need to dial in and know what their kids are doing.

Nothing’s funnier to me than laughing at myself.

Every one of us have things that we believe about ourselves when nobody else is looking, nobody else is listening, nobody else is monitoring what we’re doing. We believe things about ourself.

Do you realize that you can’t play the game of life with sweaty palms?

There is nothing wrong with your marriage if you’re dealing with bills and kids and the broken garbage disposal and in-laws and work demands. That’s a normal marriage.

I tell you, if you’re in the front row of the parade and you stop walking, pretty soon you’re back in the tuba section. And if you want to lead the parade you’ve got to keep moving.