• Purgatory must be like that moment when your first awake, just before you remember that you love and are loved.
• “Your money or your life.” We know what to do when a burglar makes this demand on us, but not when God does.
• Don’t be yourself–be someone a little nicer.

From the (still out of print, but prices are rising) “The Complete Neurotic’s Notebook” by Mignon McLaughlin. Earlier entries in this series: June 22, 18, 10, 7, May 10, April 25 and 28.

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• The young have such fervor: nothing can stop them except success.
• In youth we are plagued by desire; in later years by the desire to feel desire.
• When I was a child, nobody died; but now it happens all the time.

From the out of print “The Complete Neurotic’s Notebook” by Mignon McLaughlin. 
Earlier entries: June 18, June 10, June 7, May 10, April 25 and 28.

Tags: Neurotic's Notebook

• Don’t fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever or not at all.
• We have a terror of seeming to exert ourselves, lest it be noticed that we exerted ourselves and did not succeed.
• The neurotic lies awake at night, composing letters to those he hates. He seldom thinks of dropping a line to those he loves.

From the out of print “The Complete Neurotic’s Notebook” by Mignon McLaughlin. 
Earlier entries: June 10, June 7, May 10, April 25 and 28.

Tags: Neurotic's Notebook

• Despair is anger with no place to go.
• The death of someone we know reminds us we are still alive–perhaps for some purpose we ought to re-examine.
• 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.

From the out of print “The Complete Neurotic’s Notebook” by Mignon McLaughlin.

Tags: Neurotic's Notebook

Adding to my May 10 and April 25 and 28 entries are four more from “The Complete Neurotic’s Notebook” by Mignon McLaughlin. This book, no longer in print, combines the epigrams from “The Neurotic’s Notebook” and “The Second Neurotic’s Notebook.”

• Every group of six or more has its inner circle, its circle, and its hangers-on.
• Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening.
• We catch frightful glimpses of ourselves in the hostile eyes of others.
• It’s terrifying to see someone inside of whom a vital spring seems to have broken. It’s particularly terrifying to see him in your mirror.

Tags: Neurotic's Notebook

Adding to my April 25 and 28 entries are four more from “The Complete Neurotic’s Notebook” by Mignon McLaughlin. This book, no longer in print, combines the epigrams from “The Neurotic’s Notebook” and “The Second Neurotic’s Notebook.”

• Many of us who are equal to life’s emergencies cannot bear it day-after-dayness.
• An old racetrack joke reminds you that the program contains all of the winner’s 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.
• What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.

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More aphorisms from “The Neurotic’s Notebook” (still out of print, but worth buying second hand).

Courage can’t see around corners, but goes around them anyway.

Nostalgia for what we have lost is more bearable than nostalgia for what we never had, for the first involves knowledge and pleasure, the second only ignorance and pain.

True remorse is never just regret over consequence; it is regret over motive.

Self-discipline is the hardest thing to learn; you need self-discipline to learn it.

If despair will yield at all, it will yield to a good night’s sleep.

Altruism is a hard master, but so is opportunism.

Tags: Neurotic's Notebook

It’s out of print, but worth picking up second hand.

Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our full powers.

Try as we will, we cannot honestly recall our youth, for we have lost its main ingredient: suspense.

You will turn over many a futile new leaf until you learn we must all write on the scratched-out pages.

We long for self-confidence, till we look at the people who have it.

Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all of the difference.

Tags: Neurotic's Notebook