Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) was an American journalist, author, and aphorist.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, McLaughlin attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She embarked on a career as a journalist and wrote short stories for such magazines as Vogue, Redbook, Glamor, and Cosmopolitan. With her husband, Time magazine editor Robert McLaughlin, Mignon co-authored the play Gayden (1948) for the 1949 Broadway season.
In the 1950s, McLaughlin began publishing aphorisms that were later accumulated in three tomes: The Neurotic’s Notebook (1963,) The Second Neurotic’s Notebook (1966,) and The Complete Neurotic’s Notebook (1981.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Mignon McLaughlin
We are irritated by rascals, intolerant of fools, and prepared to love the rest. But where are they?
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Hypocrisy
The time to begin most things is ten years ago.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Procrastination
A husband only worries about a particular Other Man; a wife distrusts her whole species.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Women
Few women care what a man looks like, and a good thing too.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Men
Mumps, measles, and puppy love are terrible after twenty.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Love
Money is much more exciting than anything it buys.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Money
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.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Women
We welcome passion, for the mind is briefly let off duty.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Fields can lie fallow, but we can’t; we have less time.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Carpe-diem
There’s an awful lot of blood around that water is thicker than.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Family
Desire creates havoc when it is the only thing between two people, or when it is what’s missing.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Love
In any family, measles are less contagious than bad habits.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Habit
It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: One liners, Unhappiness, Change
The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother’s Day are the good ones.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Mothers, Motherhood
An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners’ names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Writing
The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: The Present, Courage
The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Past and Present, Past
Love unlocks doors and opens windows that weren’t even there before.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Love
We have to call it “freedom”: who’d want to die for “a lesser tyranny?”
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Freedom
People are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fibre called courage.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Courage
Few of us write great novels; all of us live them.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Life
Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Carpe-diem
Love is the silent saying and saying of a single name.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: One liners, Love
No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you’ll see why.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Listening, Boredom
When suffering comes, we yearn for some sign from God, forgetting we have just had one.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Adversity
Says the rude child: “No, I won’t do it”. Says the courteous grown-up: “Yes, I won’t do it”.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Manners
A new wound makes all the old ones ache again.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Adversity
No one has ever loved anyone the way everyone wants to be loved.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Realistic Expectations, Love
Many who would not take the last cookie would take the last lifeboat.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Manners
If the pain wanders, do not waste your time with doctors.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Health
If you must reread old love letters, better pick a room without mirrors.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Letters
Albert Einstein when asked what he considered to be the most powerful force in the universe answered: Compound interest! What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Change, Value
“Your money, or your life”. We know what to do when a burglar makes this demand of us, but not when God does.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Money
Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Confidence
Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Love, One liners
It upsets women to be, or not to be, stared at hungrily.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Women
The hardest-learned lesson: that people have only their kind of love to give, not our kind.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Love
Women polish the silver and water the plants and wait to be really needed.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Women
It’s impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Integrity
There’s nothing wrong with most men’s egos that the kowtowing of a headwaiter can’t cure.
—Mignon McLaughlin
Topics: Men
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