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In Retrospect, Our Triumphs Could As Easily Have Happened To Someone Else; But Our Defeats Are Uniquely Our Own.

-Mignon McLaughlin

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In Retrospect, Our Triumphs

Mignon McLaughlin

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In Retrospect, Our Triumphs Could As Easily Have Happened To Someone Else; But Our Defeats Are Uniquely Our Own.

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The Neurotic Would Like To Trust His Analyst - If Only Because He's Paying Him So Much Money. But He Can't - Because If The Analyst Really Cared, He'd Be Doing It For Nothing.

Whatever We Worship, Short Of God, Is Sure To Be Our Undoing.

The Trouble With Women Is Men; The Trouble With Men, Men.

Every Group Feels Strong Once It Has Found A Scapegoat.

When Suffering Comes, We Yearn For Some Sign From God, Forgetting We Have Just Had One.

World Suffering

We Welcome Passion, For The Mind Is Briefly Let Off Duty.

Men Never Know How Tired They Are Till Their Wives Sit Them Down For A Nice Long Talk.

If You're A Gifted Flirt, Talking About The Price Of Eggs Will Do As Well As Any Other Subject.

In Church, Sacred Music Would Make Believers Of Us All — But Preachers Can Be Counted On To Restore The Balance.

Being Neurotic Is Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel, And Missing Them.

Love Is Often Gentle, Desire Always A Rage.

If You Have To Do It Every Day, For God's Sake Learn To Do It Well.

We Have To Call It "freedom": Who'd Want To Die For "a Lesser Tyranny"

No One Really Listens To Anyone Else, And If You Try It For A While You'll See Why.

There Are A Handful Of People Whom Money Won't Spoil, And We All Count Ourselves Among Them.

If You Made A List Of Reasons Why Any Couple Got Married, And Another List Of The Reasons For Their Divorce, You'd Have A Hell Of A Lot Of Overlapping.

It Does Not Undo Harm To Acknowledge That We Have Done It; But It Undoes Us Not To Acknowledge It.

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.

Ma-ma Does Everything For The Baby, Who Responds By Saying Da-da First.

Without Enthusiasm, Virtue Functions Not At All, And Vice Only Poorly.

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Not For Nothing Does The Neurotic Suffer - But Not For Anything Very Much, Either.

No Matter How Many Christmas Presents You Give Your Child, There's Always That Terrible Moment When He's Opened The Very Last One. That's When He Expects You To Say, 'oh Yes, I Almost Forgot,' And Take Him Out And Show Him The Pony.

One Of Life's Few Really Reliable Pleasures: To Have A Family You Love, And To Leave Them For A Week.

There's An Awful Lot Of Blood Around That Water Is Thicker Than.

I Often Pray, Though I'm Not Really Sure Anyone's Listening; And I Phrase It Carefully, Just In Case He's Literary.

People Keep Telling Us About Their Love Affairs, When What We Really Want To Know Is How Much Money They Make And How They Manage On It.

Surrounded By People Who Love Life, You Love It Too; Surrounded By People Who Don't, You Don't.

Neurotics Have Plenty Of Non-neurotic Friends, But Not For Long.

After The Chills And Fever Of Love, How Nice Is The 98.6 Degrees Of Marriage.

Creative Work Is One Of Life's Greatest Pleasures, And The Only One We Will Gladly Interrupt.

The Excesses Of Love Soon Pass, But Its Insufficiencies Torment Us Forever.

I Wish I'd Said It First, And I Don't Even Know Who Did: The Only Problems That Money Can Solve Are Money Problems.

Tragedy Isn't Getting Something, Or Failing To Get It; It's Losing Something You Already Have.

Few Novels Or Plays Could Exist Without At Least One Troublemaker In The Group, And Perhaps Life Couldn't Either.

Be Glad That You're Greedy; The National Economy Would Collapse If You Weren't.

All Women Are Basically In Competition With Each Other For A Handful Of Eligible Men.

Women Gather Together To Wear Silly Hats, Eat Dainty Food, And Forget How Unresponsive Their Husbands Are. Men Gather To Talk Sports, Eat Heavy Food, And Forget How Demanding Their Wives Are. Only Where Children Gather Is There Any Real Chance Of Fun.

Hope Is The Feeling We Have That The Feeling We Have Is Not Permanent.

Most Of Us Can Easily Do Two Things At Once; What's All But Impossible Is To Do One Thing At Once.

Money: In Its Absence, We Are Coarse; In Its Presence, We Are Vulgar.

Learn A Little Of Anything, And You're Ready To Proselytize.

A Good Executive Is One Who Makes People Contentedly Settle For Less Than They Meant To Get, In Return For More Than They Meant To Give.

Courage Doesn't Know What's Around The Corner, But Goes Around It Anyway.

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Beauty Often Fades, But Seldom So Swiftly As The Joy It Gives Us.

Despair Is Anger With No Place To Go.

Of All Second-class Citizens, Neurotics Are The Only Ones Who Are So By Choice.

The Time To Begin Most Things Is Ten Years Ago.

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I'm Afraid To Win, And Afraid To Lose; I Hate A Draw And Can't Stop Competing; Otherwise I'm Fine.

The Way The Neurotic Sees It: Bars On His Door Mean That He's Locked In; Bars On Your Door Mean That He's Locked Out.

We Climb Mountains Because They Are There, And Worship God Because He Is Not.

With Each Passing Year, One Has Less To Say, And Knows Better How To Say It.

Men Gossip Less Than Women, But Mean It.

God And The Devil Lose To A Common Enemy: Inertia.

Tough And Funny And A Little Bit Kind: That Is As Near To Perfection As A Human Being Can Be.

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We Are Never More Self-righteous Than When Giving Up What We Should Have Shunned All Along.

Neurotics Are Sure That No One Understands Them, And They Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way.

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The Neurotic Always Wishes People Would Let Him Alone - Until They Do.

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Naturally, The Neurotic Wants You To Love Him Twice As Much, For He's Going To Cut It In Half Anyway.

I Know Which Side My Bread Is Buttered On: The Side Which Falls On The Carpet.

A Woman Will Do Anything To Keep A Pretty Figure, But Hardly Anything To Get One.

The Three Horrors Of Modern Life - Talk Without Meaning, Desire Without Love, Work Without Satisfaction.

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Our Strength Is Often Composed Of The Weakness That We're Damned If We're Going To Show.

Anything You Lose Automatically Doubles In Value.

It's Terrifying To See Someone Inside Of Whom A Vital Spring Seems To Have Been Broken. It's Particularly Terrifying To See Him In Your Mirror.

Women Flirt To Keep Their Stock High, Men To Get Somewhere.

Your Best Work Always Seems To Have Been Done By Someone Else.

Few Women Care What A Man Looks Like, And A Good Thing Too.

The Proud Man Can Learn Humility, But He Will Be Proud Of It.

You Can't Truthfully Explain Your Smallest Action Without Fully Revealing Your Character.

We Catch Frightful Glimpses Of Ourselves In The Hostile Eyes Of Others.

A Car Is Useless In New York, Essential Everywhere Else. The Same With Good Manners.

Don't Ask Others To Forgive In You A Sin They're Dying To Commit Themselves.

Anything You Do From The Heart Enriches You, But Sometimes Not Till Years Later.

It Must Infuriate Our Children To See Us Always So Much More Forbearing With Everybody Else's.

A Love That Lasts For Twenty Years May Be Better Than Love, But It Isn't Love.

I'm Glad I Don't Have To Explain To A Man From Mars Why Each Day I Set Fire To Dozens Of Little Pieces Of Paper, And Then Put Them In My Mouth.

Many Beautiful Women Have Been Made Happy By Their Own Beauty, But No Intelligent Woman Has Ever Been Made Happy By Her Own Intelligence.

All Love Is Probationary, A Fact Which Frightens Women And Exhilarates Men.

The Neurotic's Strongest Fantasy Is That He Has No Fantasies. The Real Is Very Real To Him, The Unreal Even More So.

No Matter How Brilliantly An Idea Is Stated, We Will Not Really Be Moved Unless We Have Already Half Thought Of It Ourselves.

Neurotics Think Of The Past With Resentment, And The Future With Dread; The Present Just Doesn't Exist.

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The Only Courage That Matters Is The Kind That Gets You From One Moment To The Next.

The Past Is Rich In Lessons From Which We Would Greatly Profit Except That The Present Is Always So Full Of Special Circumstances.

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We Are Seldom Happy With What We Now Have, But Would Go To Pieces If We Lost Any Part Of It.

My Thoughts, I Guess, Are Bitter; Who But The Bitter Have Thoughts?

Cash Is The One Gift Everyone Despises And No One Turns Down.

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Neurotics Always Feel As Though They Were Going Way Up Or Way Down, Which Is Odd In People Going Sideways.

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The Young Do Not Need God, And The Old Cannot Find Him.

We Often Pray To Be Better, When In Truth We Only Want To Feel Better.

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Procrastination

Character Is What Emerges From All The Little Things You Were Too Busy To Do Yesterday, But Did Anyway.

Love Looks Forward, Hate Looks Back, Anxiety Has Eyes All Over Its Head.

It Upsets Women To Be, Or Not To Be, Stared At Hungrily.

A Productive Marriage Requires Falling In Enjoy Numerous Occasions, Usually With The Identical Man Or Woman.

The Neurotic Doesn't Know How To Cope With His Emotional Bills; Some He Keeps Paying Over And Over, Others He Never Pays At All.

We Waste A Lot Of Time Running After People We Could Have Caught By Just Standing Still.

Suburb: A Place That Isn't City, Isn't Country, And Isn't Tolerable.

The Poor Have The Same Basic Pleasures As The Rich, And The Rich Will Always Resent It.

Life Is A Mixed Blessing, Which We Vainly Try To Unmix.

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No Woman Wants To See Herself Too Clearly.

The Neurotic Is Always Half-drowning In Anxiety, And Always Being Half-rescued.

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The Only Mothers It Is Safe To Forget On Mother's Day Are The Good Ones.

If You Are Brave Too Often, People Will Come To Expect It Of You.

Spite Is Never Lonely; Envy Always Tags Along.

When We Discuss Those We Love With Those Who Do Not Love Them, The End Of Love Is Near.

There Are Whole Years For Which I Hope I'll Never Be Cross-examined, For I Could Not Give An Alibi.

Affairs Are Just As Disillusioning As Marriage, And Much Less Restful.

There Is Always Some Specific Moment When We Become Aware That Our Youth Is Gone; But, Years After, We Know It Was Much Later.

If There Is Something You Must Do And You Cannot Do It, You Cannot Do Anything Else.

The Death Of Someone We Know Always Reminds Us That We Are Still Alive - Perhaps For Some Purpose Which We Ought To Re-examine.

We Are Like People With Short-term Leases On Summer Cottages; We Can Never Seem To Make Our Provisions Come Out Even With Our Stay.

If An Article Is Attractive, Or Useful, Or Inexpensive, They'll Stop Making It Tomorrow; If It's All Three, They Stopped Making It Yesterday.

It's Awesome To Realize That If Your Greatest Potential Talent Is For Riding A Bicycle Upside Down On A High Wire, You Will Somehow Discover It.

Good-looking Girls Break Hearts, And Goodhearted Girls Mend Them.

Others Settle For Small Rewards; The Neurotic Must Always Go For Broke.

If I Knew Why I Worried So Much, I Wouldn't Worry.

What We Love About Love Is The Fever, Which Marriage Puts To Bed And Cures.

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.

A Husband Only Worries About A Particular Other Man; A Wife Distrusts Her Whole Species.

The Head Never Rules The Heart, But Just Becomes Its Partner In Crime.

The Fault We Admit To Is Seldom The Fault We Have, But It Has A Certain Relationship To It, A Somewhat Similar Shape, Like That Of A Sleeve To An Arm.

What You Have Become Is The Price You Paid To Get What You Used To Want.

If Your Children Spend Most Of Their Time In Other People's Houses, You're Lucky; If They All Congregate At Your House, You're Blessed.

Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse. But They're Sometimes So Bad They Can't Get Better.

Love Is The Silent Saying And Saying Of A Single Name.

Neurotic Quarrels Always Have The Same Theme-song: Hate Me And Get It Over With.

The First Two Days Of A Vacation Are Endless; Then It Flies.

A Woman Telling Her True Age Is Like A Buyer Confiding His Final Price To An Armenian Rug Dealer.

Spiritual Sloth, Or Acedia, Was Known As The Sin Of The Middle Ages. It's The Sin Of My Middle Age, Too.

Spring, Summer, And Fall Fill Us With Hope; Winter Alone Reminds Us Of The Human Condition.

Neurotic: Someone Who Can Go From The Bottom To The Top, And Back Again, Without Ever Once Touching The Middle.

A Perfect Marriage Is One In Which "i'm Sorry" Is Said Just Often Enough.

The Total History Of Almost Anyone Would Shock Almost Everyone.

The Fear Of Being Laughed At Makes Cowards Of Us All.

Throughout Our Lives, We See In The Mirror The Same Innocent Trusting Face We Have Seen There Since Childhood.

If Only We Could Be Old And Sick While We're Still Young And Healthy Enough To Put Up With It!

Many Of Us Go Through Life Feeling As An Actor Might Feel Who Does Not Like His Part And Does Not Believe In The Play.

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