Background Image

...

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

-Mignon McLaughlin

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Whether Or Not You

Mignon McLaughlin

...

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

Views: 5

Topic

More From Mignon McLaughlin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Night, Neurotics May Toil Not, But Oh How They Spin!

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Despair Is Anger With No Place To Go.

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

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

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

Vanity, Revenge, Loneliness, Boredom, All Apply: Lust Is One Of The Least Of The Reasons For Promiscuity.

Others Follow Patterns; We Alone Are Unpredictable.

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

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.

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

The First-rate Mind Is Always Curious, Compassionate, Original, And Pessimistic.

When Their Children Fail To Charm Others, Few Parents Can Stay Neutral.

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

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

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

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

Procrastination

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

The Time To Begin Most Things Is Ten Years Ago.

Procrastination

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I've Been Hiding From God, And I'm Appalled To Find How Easy It Is.

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

Neurotics Are Anxiety Prone, Accident Prone, And Often Just Prone.

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

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

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

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

Goods Are Displayed By Thousands Of Shopkeepers With A Sense Of Beauty That Finds No Other Outlet.

Healthy Parakeets Have The Nervous Energy Of Tennis Players.

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

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

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

No One Ever Loved Anyone The Way That Person Wanted To Be Loved.

Wanted To Be Loved

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

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

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

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

Revenge Leads To An Empty Fullness, Like Eating Dirt.

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.

What We Forgive Too Freely Doesn't Stay Forgiven.

Power Of Forgiveness

Anything You Lose Automatically Doubles In Value.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Around The Corner

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

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

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

Minor Vices Lead To Major Ones, But Minor Virtues Stay Put.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neurotics Are Always Looking For Something New To Overdo.

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

The Next Voice You Hear Will Undoubtedly Be Your Own.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Family Quarrels Have A Total Bitterness Unmatched By Others. Yet It Sometimes Happens That They Also Have A Kind Of Tang, A Pleasantness Beneath The Unpleasantness, Based On The Tacit Understanding That This Is Not For Keeps; That Any Limb You Climb Out On Will Still Be There Later For You To Climb Back.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The Neurotic Longs To Touch Bottom, So At Least He Won't Have That To Worry About Anymore.

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

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.

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

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

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

Cigarette Smoke

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

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

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

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

Hate Leaves Ugly Scars, Love Leaves Beautiful Ones.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Tired God Must Be Of Guilt And Loneliness, For That Is All We Ever Bring To Him.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Spite Is Never Lonely; Envy Always Tags Along.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Few Of Us Could Bear To Have Ourselves For Neighbors.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Altruism Is A Hard Master, But So Is Opportunism.

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

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

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

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

Women Are Afraid Of Mice And Of Murder, And Of Very Little In Between.

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

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

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

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

Women Usually Love What They Buy, Yet Hate Two-thirds Of What Is In Their Closets.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We Wake In The Night, To Stereophonic Silence.

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

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

Those Who Are Brutally Honest Are Seldom So With Themselves.

Brutally Honest

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

Children Lack Morality, But They Also Lack Fake Morality.

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

The Know-nothings Are, Unfortunately, Seldom The Do-nothings.

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

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

Says The Rude Child: "no, I Won't Do It." Says The Courteous Grown-up: "yes, I Won't Do It.

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

Fields Can Lie Fallow But We Can't; We Have Less Time.

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

Trending Author

Ferdinand De Saussure

Fantasia Barrino

Category