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"Quality time" (QT) is an informal reference to time spent with loved ones (e.g., close family, partners or friends) that is in some way important, special, productive or profitable. It is time that is set aside for paying full and undivided attention to the person or matter at hand. It may also refer to time spent performing some favorite activity.
"Quality time" (noun phrase) is a relatively new expression, in use since the 1970s. One of the earliest records of this phrase in print was in the Maryland (USA) newspaper The Capital, January 1973, in the article "How To Be Liberated":
The major goal of each of these role changes is to give a woman time to herself, Ms. Burton explained. "A woman's right and responsibility is to be self fulfilling," she said. She gives "quality time" rather than "quantity time" to each task, whether it be writing, cleaning the house or tending the children.Famous quotes containing the words quality time, quality and/or time:
“Anybody who knows the difference between the kind of conversation you have walking in the woods and the kind of conversation you have between the segments of a show on Nickelodeon can tell you that quality time exists. Quality time is when you and your child are together and keenly aware of each other. You are enjoying the same thing at the same time, even if it is just being in a room or going for a drive in the car. You are somehow in tune, even while daring to be silent together.”
—Louise Lague (20th century)
“I have every characteristic of a night person—a distaste for bosses, a hatred of the expected, an obsession with gaining an ultimately nonexistent freedom—every quality except one. I can’t stay awake after a while. I fall asleep.”
—John Bowers (b. 1928)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)