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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.

-Mignon McLaughlin

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The Way The Neurotic

Mignon McLaughlin

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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.

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

Grasp Your Opportunities, No Matter How Poor Your Health; Nothing Is Worse For Your Health Than Boredom.

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Procrastination

It's Easy Enough To Get Along With A Loved And Loving Child - At Least Till You Try To Get Him To Do Something.

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

Around The Corner

Few Of Us Could Bear To Have Ourselves For Neighbors.

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

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

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.

Many Of Us Are Equal To Life's Emergencies Who Cannot Bear Its Day-after-dayness.

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

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.

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

Purity And Innocence

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.

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

World Suffering

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

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

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

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

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

The Total History Of Almost Anyone Would Shock Almost Everyone.

Love Is Often Gentle, Desire Always A Rage.

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

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

The Young Are Generally Full Of Revolt, And Are Often Pretty Revolting About It.

The Neurotic Circles Ceaselessly Above A Fogged-in Airport.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The Neurotic Has Perfect Vision In One Eye, But He Cannot Remember Which.

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

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

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

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

Neurotics Are Always Looking For Something New To Overdo.

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

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

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

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

Every Group Feels Strong Once It Has Found A Scapegoat.

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

Healthy Parakeets Have The Nervous Energy Of Tennis Players.

Despair Is Anger With No Place To Go.

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

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

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

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

Men Who Don't Like Girls With Brains Don't Like Girls.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Those Who Turn To God For Comfort May Find Comfort But I Do Not Think They Will Find God.

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

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

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

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

Neurotics Would Like To Sleep All The Time, And To Be Awakened Only When There Is Good News.

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

The Next Voice You Hear Will Undoubtedly Be Your Own.

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

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

A Parent Who Has Never Apologized To His Children Is A Monster. If He's Always Apologizing, His Children Are Monsters.

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

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

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.

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

Cigarette Smoke

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

Procrastination

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

I'm Always There To Tell People That Their Life Is Not That Bad. I Wish It Was Easy To Follow That Advice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Women Who Feel Naked Without Their Lipstick Are Well Over Thirty.

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

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

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

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

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

If Your Husband Expects You To Laugh, Do So; If He Expects You To Cry, Don't; If You Don't Know What He Expects, What Are You Doing Married?

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

We Choose Those We Like; With Those We Love, We Have No Say In The Matter.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Hot Dogs Always Seem Better Out Than At Home; So Do French-fried Potatoes; So Do Your Children.

Revenge Leads To An Empty Fullness, Like Eating Dirt.

You Will Turn Over Many A Futile New Leaf Till You Learn We Must All Write On Scratched-out Pages.

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

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

If The Second Marriage Really Succeeds, The First One Didn't Really Fail.

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

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.

We Have A Terror Of Seeming To Exert Ourselves, Lest It Be Noticed That We Exerted Ourselves And Did Not Succeed.

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

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

It's Wonderful To Watch Pretty Women With Character Grow Beautiful.

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

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

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

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.

We Always Prefer War On Our Own Terms To Peace On Someone Else's.

We'd All Like A Reputation For Generosity, And We'd All Like To Buy It Cheap.

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

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.

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

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

The Time To Begin Most Things Is Ten Years Ago.

Procrastination

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.

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

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

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

Everybody Can Write; Writers Can't Do 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.

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

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

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

Many Marriages Are Simply Working Partnerships Between Businessmen And Housekeepers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Anywhere You Go Liking Everyone, Everyone Will Be Likeable.

Positive Thinking

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

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

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

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

Men Really Prefer Reasonably Attractive Women; They Go After The Sensational Ones To Impress Other Men.

Age Is A Slowing Down Of Everything Except Fear.

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

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

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

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

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 Ideal Home: Big Enough For You To Hear The Children, But Not Very Well.

Humiliation Is A Vast Country Of Imprecise Boundaries. If You Think You're There, You Are. The Neurotic Rule: When In Doubt, Go Ahead And Feel Humiliated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Day You Are An Apprentice, And Everybody's Pet; The Next, You Are Coldly Expected To Deliver. There Is Never Sufficient Warning That The Second Day Is Coming.

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

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

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