WIST Quotations

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1966)

Dave — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 13:53:35 +0000

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 (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1966)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 10 (1963)

Dave — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 15:32:57 +0000

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

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 10 (1963)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 9 (1963)

Dave — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 16:21:36 +0000

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.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 9 (1963)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1966)

Dave — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 14:53:21 +0000

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

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1966)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1966)

Dave — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 14:59:31 +0000

If I knew what I was so anxious about, I wouldn’t be so anxious.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1966)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1966)

Dave — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 16:15:59 +0000

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

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1966)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1963)

Dave — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 16:12:46 +0000

The neurotic feels like a Christmas shopper who keeps dropping his packages, and it’s raining.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1963)
(Source)

Holland, Barbara -- Wasn’t the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon’s Fond Memories (1999)

Dave — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 19:04:55 +0000

“Are you seeing a psychiatrist?” as a conversation opener would nowadays earn you a punch in the nose, but for fifty years it was a compliment. It meant, “One can plainly see you are sensitive, intense, and interesting, and therefore neurotic.” Only the dullest of clods trudged around without a neurosis.

Barbara Holland (1933-2010) American author
Wasn’t the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon’s Fond Memories (1999)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1966)

Dave — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 15:36:59 +0000

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

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1966)
(Source)

Smith, Steven B. -- Modernity and Its Discontents (2016)

Dave — Wed, 26 May 2021 20:59:45 +0000

To be modern is to exhibit a whole range of uncertainties and pathologies, from Locke’s sense of “uneasiness,” Rousseau’s “amour-propre,” Hegel’s “unhappy consciousness,” and Kierkegaard’s “anxiety,” to Tocqueville’s “inquiétude,” Marx’s “alienation,” and Weber’s “disenchantment.”

Steven B. Smith (b. 1951) American political scientist, academic, author
Modernity and Its Discontents (2016)
(Source)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 1 (1963)

Dave — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 17:01:40 +0000

Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 1 (1963)
(Source)

Szasz, Thomas -- “Mental Illness,” The Second Sin (1973)

Dave — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:48:56 +0000

Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.

Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) Hungarian-American psychiatrist, educator
“Mental Illness,” The Second Sin (1973)
(Source)