Mignon McLaughlin
Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway.Collection: Character
When threatened, the first thing a democracy gives up is democracy.Collection: Giving Up
Whatever we worship, short of God, is sure to be our undoing.Collection: Worship
Good-looking girls break hearts, and goodhearted girls mend them.Collection: Girl
The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it.Collection: Past
There are always a few people you do a lot for, and a few who do a lot for you, but they're not the same people.Collection: Kindness
We are seldom happy with what we now have, but would go to pieces if we lost any part of it.Collection: Happiness
A first-rate marriage is like a first-rate hotel: expensive, but worth it.Collection: Marriage
Tragedy isn't getting something, or failing to get it; it's losing something you already have.Collection: Tragedy
True remorse is never just a regret over consequences; it is a regret over motive.Collection: Forgiveness
We choose those we like; with those we love, we have no say in the matter.Collection: Love
When "Why not do it?" barely outweighs "Why do it?" — don't do it.Collection: Wise
There are now electrical appliances with the main unit so sealed in that it cannot be got at for repair. There have always been human beings like that.Collection: Psychology
Your money, or your life. We know what to do when a burglar makes this demand of us, but not when God does.Collection: Money
No one can understand love who has not experienced infatuation. And no one can understand infatuation, no matter how many times he has experienced it.Collection: Love
When women feel they have learned to forgive their mothers - and men, their fathers - all it usually means is that they've decided to allow themselves the same kind of behavior.Collection: Mother
Don't fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at allCollection: Business
Each day, the American housewife turns toward television as toward a lover. She feels guilty about it, and well she might, for he's covered with warts and is only after her money.Collection: Each Day
The neurotic's strongest fantasy is that he has no fantasies. The real is very real to him, the unreal even more so.Collection: Real
We catch frightful glimpses of ourselves in the hostile eyes of others.Collection: Eye
A bore: one who knows as well as you do what he is going to say next.Collection: Next
We have a terror of seeming to exert ourselves, lest it be noticed that we exerted ourselves and did not succeed.Collection: Entrepreneur
Men never know how tired they are till their wives sit them down for a nice long talk.Collection: Inspirational
Neurotics would like to sleep all the time, and to be awakened only when there is good news.Collection: Sleep
My religious position: I think that God could do a lot better, and I'm willing to give Him the chance.Collection: Religious
A hypochondriac is one who has a pill for everything except what ails him.Collection: Pills
Children lack morality, but they also lack fake morality.Collection: Children
Whenever we safely land in a plane, we promise God a little something.Collection: Travel
I've been hiding from God, and I'm appalled to find how easy it is.Collection: God
Desire creates havoc when it is the only thing between two people, or when it is what's missing.Collection: Love
The young do not need God, and the old cannot find Him.Collection: God
After the chills and fever of love, how nice is the 98.6 degrees of marriage.Collection: Marriage
Without enthusiasm, virtue functions not at all, and vice only poorly.Collection: Enthusiasm
Many who would not take the last cookie would take the last lifeboat.Collection: Cookies
Altruism is a hard master, but so is opportunism.Collection: Masters
Cash is the one gift everyone despises and no one turns down.Collection: Cash
Every American child should grow up knowing a second language, preferably English.Collection: Children
If the second marriage really succeeds, the first one didn't really fail.Collection: Succeed
It's wonderful to watch pretty women with character grow beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners' names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought.Collection: Writing
People find it hard to be both comic and serious, though life manages it easily enough.Collection: Life
The soul may sleep and the body still be happy, but only in youth.Collection: Sleep
No woman wants to see herself too clearly.Collection: Women
The neurotic keeps minute track of his enemies; it is only his friends he is careless about.Collection: Track
There's only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that's a writer sitting down to write.Collection: Children
The neurotic lies awake at night, composing letters to those he hates. He seldom thinks of dropping a line to those he loves.Collection: Hate
Affairs are just as disillusioning as marriage, and much less restful.Collection: Marriage
A doctor recently described to me "benign positional vertigo": it means you get dizzy in certain positions, but you can get over it without necessarily changing the position. Change "vertigo" to "anxiety," and you've summed up the neurotic's plight.Collection: Mean
The next voice you hear will undoubtedly be your own.Collection: Voice