Great Throughts Treasury

"Naturally, the neurotic wants you to love him twice as much, for he's going to cut it in half anyway."

"Neurotics always feel as though they were going way up or way down, which is odd in people going sideways."

"Neurotic: someone who can go from the bottom to the top, and back again, without ever once touching the middle."

"Neurotics are always looking for something new to overdo."

"Neurosis is no worse than a bad cold; you ache all over, and it's made you a mess, but you won't die from it."

"Neurotics are sure that no one understands them, and they wouldn't have it any other way."

"Neurotics are anxiety prone, accident prone, and often just prone."

"Neurotics dream of a good life, or a great suicide note."

"Neurotics would like to sleep all the time, and to be awakened only when there is good news."

"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."

"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."

"On stage and off, we care what happens to a beautiful woman, whether she can act well or not."

"No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why."

"Of all second-class citizens, neurotics are the only ones who are so by choice."

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

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to weave."

"Others follow patterns; we alone are unpredictable."

"One of life's few really reliable pleasures: to have a family you love, and to leave them for a week."

"Others settle for small rewards; the neurotic must always go for broke."

"People are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fiber called courage."

"People find it hard to be both comic and serious, though life manages it easily enough."

"People who won't have a TV set in their house get more pleasure from their refusal than most of us get from TV."

"Philosophy teaches a man that he can't take it with him; taxes teach him he can't leave it behind either."

"Says the rude child: "No, I won't do it." Says the courteous grown-up: "Yes, I won't do it.""

"Self-confidence grows on trees, in other people's orchards."

"Sooner or later, they govern who are determined to."

"People will disapprove of you if you're unhappy, or if you're happy in The Wrong Way."

"Puritans will never believe it, but life is full of disagreeable things that aren't even good for you."

"Revenge leads to an empty fullness, like eating dirt."

"'Pull yourself together' is seldom said to anyone who can."

"Surrounded by people who love life, you love it too; surrounded by people who don't, you don't."

"Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition."

"The chief reason for drinking is the desire to behave in a certain way, and to be able to blame it on alcohol."

"The family unit is man's noblest device for being bored."

"The fault no child ever loses is the one he was most punished for."

"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."

"The fear of being laughed at makes cowards of us all."

"The mark of the neurotic: to imagine that you're the only one who cares deeply for anything."

"The ideal home: big enough for you to hear the children, but not very well."

"The marriage of convenience has this to recommend it: we are better judges of convenience than we are of love."

"The neurotic always wishes people would let him alone - until they do."

"The neurotic feels as though trapped in a gas-filled room where at any moment someone, probably himself, will strike a match."

"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."

"The neurotic has perfect vision in one eye, but he cannot remember which."

"The neurotic circles ceaselessly above a fogged-in airport."

"The neurotic is always half-drowning in anxiety, and always being half-rescued."

"The neurotic listens to weather reports about Small Craft Warnings, and he thinks: They're talking about me."

"The neurotic keeps minute track of his enemies; it is only his friends he is careless about."

"The neurotic thinks himself both Hamlet and Claudius, in a world that belongs to Polonius."

"The neurotic longs to touch bottom, so at least he won't have that to worry about anymore."