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The Chief Reason For Drinking Is The Desire To Behave In A Certain Way, And To Be Able To Blame It On Alcohol.

-Mignon McLaughlin

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The Chief Reason For

Mignon McLaughlin

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The Chief Reason For Drinking Is The Desire To Behave In A Certain Way, And To Be Able To Blame It On Alcohol.

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Don't Fool Yourself That Important Things Can Be Put Off Till Tomorrow; They Can Be Put Off Forever, Or Not At All

Procrastination

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

Despair Is Anger With No Place To Go.

Every American Child Should Grow Up Knowing A Second Language, Preferably English.

We Are All Such A Waste Of Our Potential, Like Three-way Lamps Using One-way Bulbs.

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

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

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

In Youth We Are Plagued By Desire; In Later Years, By The Desire To Feel Desire.

The Hardest-learned Lesson: That People Have Only Their Kind Of Love To Give, Not Our Kind.

People Find It Hard To Be Both Comic And Serious, Though Life Manages It Easily Enough.

Anywhere You Go Liking Everyone, Everyone Will Be Likeable.

Positive Thinking

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

What A Shame That Allowances Have To Stop With The Teens: Both Those That Are Paid To Us And Those That Are Made For Us.

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

There Are So Many Things That We Wish We Had Done Yesterday, So Few That We Feel Like Doing Today.

Procrastination

When Hope Is Hungry, Everything Feeds It

Society Honors Its Living Conformists And Its Dead Troublemakers.

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

Neurotics Make Poor Patriots; If You're Ashamed Of Something As Big As Yourself, It's Hard To Be Proud Of Something As Small As Your Country.

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

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.

A First-rate Marriage Is Like A First-rate Hotel: Expensive, But Worth It.

If You Can Tell Anyone About It, It's Not The Worst Thing You Ever Did.

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

The Woman Just Ahead Of You At The Supermarket Checkout Has All The Delectable Groceries You Didn't Even Know They Carried.

When You Let Money Speak For You, It Drowns Out Anything Else You Meant To Say.

Whenever We Safely Land In A Plane, We Promise God A Little Something.

Too Much Money Is As Demoralizing As Too Little, And There's No Such Thing As Exactly Enough.

Most Of Us Would Rather Risk Catastrophe Than Read The Directions.

Desire Is In Men A Hunger, In Women Only An Appetite.

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.

Your Children Tell You Casually Years Later What It Would Have Killed You With Worry To Know At The Time.

The Total History Of Almost Anyone Would Shock Almost Everyone.

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

Comfort, Or Revelation: God Owes Us One Of These, But Surely Not Both.

When First We Fall In Love, We Feel That We Know All There Is To Know About Life, And Perhaps We Are Right.

Falling In Love

We Lavish On Animals The Love We Are Afraid To Show To People. They Might Not Return It; Or Worse, They Might.

We Are Irritated By Rascals, Intolerant Of Fools, And Prepared To Love The Rest. But Where Are They?

Nobody Knows The Trouble We've Seen-but We Keep Trying To Tell Them.

Pull Yourself Together' Is Seldom Said To Anyone Who Can.

If It Came True, It Wasn't Much Of A Dream.

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

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

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

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

Neurotics Expect You To Remember All The Things That They Tell You, And Many That They Don't.

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

A Critic Can Only Review The Book He Has Read, Not The One Which The Writer Wrote.

With Men, As With Women, The Main Struggle Is Between Vanity And Comfort; But With Men, Comfort Often Wins.

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

Courage Can't See Around Corners But Goes Around Them Anyway.

Every Creature Stalks Some Other, Catches It, And Is Caught.

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

The Neurotic Thinks Himself Both Hamlet And Claudius, In A World That Belongs To Polonius.

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

Puritans Will Never Believe It, But Life Is Full Of Disagreeable Things That Aren't Even Good For You.

A Woman Ought To Look Up To Her Husband, If Only A Half-inch.

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

We Can Never Understand Other People's Motives, Nor Their Furniture.

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.

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.

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

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

World Suffering

The Two Main Hazards Of Psychoanalysis: That It Might Fail, And That If It Succeeds, You'll Never Be Able To Forgive Yourself For All Those Wasted Years.

Elegimos Aquellos Que Nos Gusta, Con Los Que Amamos, No Tenemos Voz En El Asunto.

We Cough Because We Can't Help It, But Others Do It On Purpose.

We Wake In The Night, To Stereophonic Silence.

People Are Like Birds: On The Wing, All Beautiful; Up Close, All Beady Little Eyes.

Acedia Is Not In Every Dictionary; Just In Every Heart.

There's Nothing Wrong With Most Men's Egos That The Kowtowing Of A Headwaiter Can't Cure.

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

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

We're Seldom Drawn To A Character We Admire; Only To A Personality We Like.

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

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

Boredom Is Often The Cause Of Promiscuity, And Always Its Result.

Only Where Children Gather Is There Any Real Chance Of Fun.

We Semaphore From Ship To Ship, But They're Sinking, Too.

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

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

Forget About Calories - Everything Makes Thin People Thinner, And Fat People Fatter.

Philosophy Teaches A Man That He Can't Take It With Him; Taxes Teach Him He Can't Leave It Behind Either.

Men Prefer Brief Praise, Pitched High; Women Are Satisfied With Praise In A Lower Key, Just So It Goes On And On.

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

In Life, As In Restaurants, We Swallow A Lot Of Indigestible Stuff Just Because It Comes With The Dinner.

Love Unlocks Doors And Opens Windows That Weren't Even There Before.

Others Follow Patterns; We Alone Are Unpredictable.

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.

Revenge Leads To An Empty Fullness, Like Eating Dirt.

A Bore: One Who Knows As Well As You Do What He Is Going To Say Next.

People Will Disapprove Of You If You're Unhappy, Or If You're Happy In The Wrong Way.

There's Something In Every Atheist, Itching To Believe, And Something In Every Believer, Itching To Doubt.

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

What's For Dinner Is The Only Question Many Husbands Ask Their Wives, And The Only One To Which They Care About The Answer.

Confession Is Good For The Conscience, But It Usually Bypasses The Soul.

I Tell You This, And I Tell You Plain: What You Have Done, You Will Do Again; You Will Bite Your Tongue, Careful Or Not, Upon The Already-bitten Spot.

Every Group Feels Strong Once It Has Found A Scapegoat.

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

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

Nobody Ever Loved Anybody Like Everybody Wants To Be Loved.

A Successful Marriage Requires Falling In Love Many Times, Always With The Same Person.

There Are Three Iron Links In The Neurotic's Chain: Unloving, Unlovable, Unloved.

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

Women Polish The Silver And Water The Plants And Wait To Be Really Needed.

Nostalgia For What We Have Lost Is More Bearable Than Nostalgia For What We Have Never Had, For The First Involves Knowledge And Pleasure, The Second Only Ignorance And Pain.

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

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

Some Marriages Break Up, And Some Do Not, And In Our World You Can Usually Explain The Former Better Than The Latter.

The Neurotic Believes That Life Has Meaning, But That His Life Hasn't.

Everybody Can Write; Writers Can't Do Anything Else.

If You Hate Your Lot But Wouldn't Trade It, It's Not Your Lot You Hate.

Hate Leaves Ugly Scars, Love Leaves Beautiful Ones.

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.

What You Can't Get Out Of, Get Into Wholeheartedly.

Every Now And Then You Run Across Radiantly Attractive People And You're Delighted To Find They Adore You, Till You Realize That They Adore Just About Everybody - And That's What's Made Them Radiantly Attractive.

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

The Neurotic Usually Obeys His Own Golden Rule: Hate Thy Neighbor As Thyself.

Neurotics Dream Of A Good Life, Or A Great Suicide Note.

It's Impossible To Be Loyal To Your Family, Your Friends, Your Country, And Your Principles, All At The Same Time.

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

If The Pain Wanders, Do Not Waste Your Time With Doctors.

Youth Is Not Enough. And Love Is Not Enough. And Success Is Not Enough. And, If We Could Achieve It, Enough Would Not Be Enough.

Congratulations

Learning Too Soon Our Limitations, We Never Learn Our Powers.

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

Even In The Same Family, One Child Will Always Instinctively Know When To Ask For Things, And Another Won't.

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

When "why Not Do It?" Barely Outweighs "why Do It?" — Don't Do It.

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

Love Requires A Willingness To Die; Marriage, A Willingness To Live.

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.

The Plague Of Government Is Senile Delinquency.

Whether Or Not You Love Television, You've Got To Admit That It Certainly Loves Itself.

We All Become Great Explorers During Our First Few Days In A New City, Or A New Love Affair.

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

In Any Family, Measles Are Less Contagious Than Bad Habits.

Few Of Us Could Bear To Have Ourselves For Neighbors.

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.

Don't Look For God Where He Is Needed Most; If You Didn't Bring Him There, He Isn't There.

Good Food, Good Sex, Good Digestion, Good Sleep: To These Basic Animal Pleasures, Man Has Added Nothing But The Good Cigarette.

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

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.

Life Marks Us All Down, So It's Just As Well That We Start Out By Overpricing Ourselves.

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.

Always Live Up To Your Standards — By Lowering Them, If Necessary.

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

An Artist Usually Has No Friends Except Other Artists, And Usually They Do Not Like His Work.

To Talk Easily With People, You Must Firmly Believe That Either You Or They Are Interesting. And Even Then It's Not Easy.

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.

Women Are Good Listeners, But It's A Waste Of Time Telling Your Troubles To A Man Unless There's Something Specific You Want Him To Do.

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.

Children Lack Morality, But They Also Lack Fake Morality.

My Religious Position: I Think That God Could Do A Lot Better, And I'm Willing To Give Him The Chance.

It's Hard To Feel Middle-aged, Because How Can You Tell How Long You Are Going To Live?

After He Has Had His Tantrum, The Neurotic Expects Those Around Him To Feel Friendly And Relaxed; After All, He Does.

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.

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

The Neurotic Listens To Weather Reports About Small Craft Warnings, And He Thinks: They're Talking About Me.

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.

We Sometimes Feel That We Have Been Really Understood, But It Was Always Long Ago, By Someone Now Dead.

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

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

God Is Less Careful Than General Motors, For He Floods The World With Factory Rejects.

The Marriage Of Convenience Has This To Recommend It: We Are Better Judges Of Convenience Than We Are Of Love.

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

It Took Man Thousands Of Years To Put Words Down On Paper, And His Lawyers Still Wish He Wouldn't.

At The Beginning Of A Love Affair, Not Even The Neurotic Is Neurotic.

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

Happiness Is Like The Penny Candy Of Our Youth: We Got A Lot More For Our Money Back When We Had No Money.

It Is Always Safe To Tell People That They're Looking Wonderful.

Some Women Love Only What They Can Hold In Their Arms; Others, Only What They Can't.

Those Who Are Brutally Honest Are Seldom So With Themselves.

Brutally Honest

How Can A Man Marry Wisely In His Twenties? The Girl He's Going To Wind Up Wanting Hasn't Even Been Born.

Your Children Vividly Remember Every Unkind Thing You Ever Did To Them, Plus A Few You Really Didn't.

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.

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

The Past Is Strapped To Our Backs. We Do Not Have To See It; We Can Always Feel It.

We Are Keenly Aware Of The Faults Of Our Friends, But If They Like Us Enough It Doesn't Matter.

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

Theatre Audiences Can't Be Made To Think And Cry: At Best, They Can Be Made To Think And Laugh, Or To Feel And Cry.

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

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

As We Are Human, We Can't Do What We Can't Do; As We're Neurotic, We Can't Do What We Can.

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

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

Albert Einstein When Asked What He Considered To Be The Most Powerful Force In The Universe Answered: Compound Interest!

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.

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

A Woman's Mink Coat Represents The Sacrifice Of A Lot Of Little Animals, Including Her Husband.

The Soul May Sleep And The Body Still Be Happy, But Only In Youth.

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

Neurosis Is No Worse Than A Bad Cold; You Ache All Over, And It's Made You A Mess, But You Won't Die From It.

True Remorse Is Never Just A Regret Over Consequences; It Is A Regret Over Motive.

It's Innocence When It Charms Us, Ignorance When It Doesn't.

Purity And Innocence

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

Neurotics Are Always Looking For Something New To Overdo.

Anything You Lose Automatically Doubles In Value.

Most Of Us Become Parents Long Before We Have Stopped Being Children.

Women Go To Beauty Parlors For The Unmussed Look Men Hate.

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

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