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

-Mignon McLaughlin

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The Only Mothers It

Mignon McLaughlin

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

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

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.

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

Purity And Innocence

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

Many Are Saved From Sin By Being So Inept At It.

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 Fear Of Being Laughed At Makes Cowards Of Us All.

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

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

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

The Neurotic Lies Awake At Night, Composing Letters To Those He Hates. He Seldom Thinks Of Dropping A Line To Those He Loves.

Few Of Us Write Great Novels; All Of Us Live Them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If You Jot Down Every Silly Thought That Pops Into Your Mind, You Will Soon Find Out Everything You Most Seriously Believe.

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

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

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.

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.

To Smoke Or Not To Smoke: I Can Make Of Either A Life-work.

Cigarette Smoke

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

There Are Children Born To Be Children, And Others Who Must Mark Time Till They Can Take Their Natural Places As Adults.

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

No Woman Wants To See Herself Too Clearly.

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

Procrastination

As We Grow Older, Our Capacity For Enjoyment Shrinks, But Not Our Appetite For It.

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.

When The Pressures Really Mount, The Neurotic Must Choose: Shall He Have A Good Cry, Or Set Fire To His Neighbor's House?

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

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

Most Sermons Sound To Me Like Commercials - But I Can't Make Out Whether God Is The Sponsor Or The Product.

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

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

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

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

The Best Work Is Done With The Heart Breaking, Or Overflowing.

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

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

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.

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

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

They Threaten Me With Lung Cancer, And Still I Smoke And Smoke. If They'd Only Threaten Me With Hard Work, I Might Stop.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

My Doctor Is Nice; Every Time I See Him, I'm Ashamed Of What I Think Of Doctors In General.

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

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

Flesh Goes On Pleasuring Us, And Humiliating Us, Right To The End.

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

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

Luck: When Your Burst Of Energy Doesn't Run Afoul Of Someone Else's.

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

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

Money Is Much More Exciting Than Anything It Buys.

Women Are The Right Age For Just A Few Years; Men, For Most Of Their Lives.

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

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

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

How Strange That The Young Should Always Think The World Is Against Them - When In Fact That Is The Only Time It Is For Them.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

It's The Most Unhappy People Who Most Fear Change.

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

In The Theater, As In Life, We Prefer A Villain With A Sense Of Humor To A Hero Without One.

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.

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

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

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

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

Most Of Our Diversions Do Not So Much Delay Death As Accustom Us To It.

Revenge Leads To An Empty Fullness, Like Eating Dirt.

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.

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

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

When The Pain Is Great Enough, We Will Let Anyone Be Doctor.

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

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

Mumps, Measles, And Puppy Love Are Terrible After Twenty.

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

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

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

Few Of Us Could Bear To Have Ourselves For Neighbors.

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

For The Happiest Life, Days Should Be Rigorously Planned, Nights Left Open To Chance.

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.

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.

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

When Threatened, The First Thing A Democracy Gives Up Is Democracy.

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

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

If I Knew What I Was So Anxious About, I Wouldn't Be So Anxious.

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

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

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

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

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

It Is Important To Our Friends To Believe That We Are Unreservedly Frank With Them, And Important To Friendship That We Are Not.

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

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

An Old Racetrack Joke Reminds You That Your Program Contains All The Winners' Names. I Stare At My Typewriter Keys With The Same Thought.

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

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

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

Anywhere You Go Liking Everyone, Everyone Will Be Likeable.

Positive Thinking

If You See In Your Children Most Of Your Own Faults, You Have Failed As A Parent, But Succeeded As A Neurotic.

In The Arithmetic Of Love, One Plus One Equals Everything, And Two Minus One Equals Nothing.

The Neurotic Keeps Minute Track Of His Enemies; It Is Only His Friends He Is Careless About.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Once You Become Self-conscious, There Is No End To It; Once You Start To Doubt, There Is No Room For Anything Else.

Men Enjoy Being Thought Of As Hunters, But Are Generally Too Lazy To Hunt. Women, On The Other Hand, Love To Hunt, But Would Rather Nobody Knew It.

The Next Voice You Hear Will Undoubtedly Be Your Own.

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

Likely As Not, The Child You Can Do The Least With Will Do The Most To Make You Proud.

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.

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

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.

Those Who Are Brutally Honest Are Seldom So With Themselves.

Brutally Honest

When A Man Falls In Love, He Wants To Go To Bed. When A Woman Falls In Love, She Wants To Talk About It.

Falling In Love

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

We Are All Born Brave, Trusting And Greedy, And Most Of Us Remain Greedy.

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

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

A Sense Of Humor Is A Major Defense Against Minor Troubles.

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

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

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

Nymphomaniac: A Woman As Obsessed With Sex As An Average Man.

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

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

Many Who Would Not Take The Last Cookie Would Take The Last Lifeboat.

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.

The Time To Begin Most Things Is Ten Years Ago.

Procrastination

A Hypochondriac Is One Who Has A Pill For Everything Except What Ails Him.

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

We Work For Praise, And Dawdle Once We Have It.

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

Self-confidence Grows On Trees, In Other People's Orchards.

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

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

Desire Creates Havoc When It Is The Only Thing Between Two People, Or When It Is What's Missing.

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

Children Lack Morality, But They Also Lack Fake Morality.

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

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

We Can Never At Any Time Absorb More Love Than We're Ready For.

Healthy Parakeets Have The Nervous Energy Of Tennis Players.

If You Must Reread Old Love Letters, Better Pick A Room Without Mirrors.

Hate Leaves Ugly Scars, Love Leaves Beautiful Ones.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Plague Of Government Is Senile Delinquency.

Don't Be Yourself - Be Someone A Little Nicer.

We Come Late, If At All, To Wine And Philosophy: Whiskey And Action Are Easier.

The Total History Of Almost Anyone Would Shock Almost Everyone.

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

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

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

God Doesn't Measure His Bounty, But Oh How We Do!

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.

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

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

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.

Age Is A Slowing Down Of Everything Except Fear.

Women Are Never Landlocked: They're Always Mere Minutes Away From The Briny Deep Of Tears.

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.

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

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

So Long As God Reveals Himself, Or Doesn't, He Is Behaving Like God.

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

Pity All Newlyweds. She Cooks Something Nice For Him, And He Brings Her Flowers, And They Kiss And Think: How Easy Marriage Is.

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