Top 350 Mignon McLaughlin Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Fields can lie fallow but we can’t; we have less time.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

102. “Women are good listeners, but it’s a waste of time telling your troubles to a man unless there’s something specific you want him to do.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

103. “If you must reread old love letters, better pick a room without mirrors.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

104. “Revenge leads to an empty fullness, like eating dirt.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

105. “I’ve been hiding from God, and I’m appalled to find how easy it is.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

106. “A hypochondriac is one who has a pill for everything except what ails him.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

107. “Women who feel naked without their lipstick are well over thirty.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

108. “Puritans will never believe it, but life is full of disagreeable things that aren’t even good for you.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

109. “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.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

110. “We semaphore from ship to ship, but they’re sinking, too.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

111. “If you jot down every silly thought that pops into your mind, you will soon find out everything you most seriously believe.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

112. “Likely as not, the child you can do the least with will do the most to make you proud.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

113. “Those who are brutally honest are seldom so with themselves.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

114. “We welcome passion, for the mind is briefly let off duty.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

115. “We always prefer war on our own terms to peace on someone else’s.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

116. “Loneliness, insomnia, and change: the fear of these is even worse than the reality.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

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

— Mignon McLaughlin

118. “Learn a little of anything, and you’re ready to proselytize.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

119. “A parent who has never apologized to his children is a monster. If he’s always apologizing, his children are monsters.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

120. “There’s no way to repay a mother’s love, or lack of it.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

121. “God doesn’t measure His bounty, but oh how we do!”

— Mignon McLaughlin

122. “A woman telling her true age is like a buyer confiding his final price to an Armenian rug dealer.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

123. “Women usually love what they buy, yet hate two-thirds of what is in their closets.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

124. “How strange that the young should always think the world is against them – when in fact that is the only time it is for them.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

125. “Minor vices lead to major ones, but minor virtues stay put.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

126. “We are seldom happy with what we now have, but would go to pieces if we lost any part of it.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

127. “Self-confidence grows on trees, in other people’s orchards.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

128. “The best work is done with the heart breaking, or overflowing.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

129. “Life marks us all down, so it’s just as well that we start out by overpricing ourselves.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

130. “Good-looking girls break hearts, and goodhearted girls mend them.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

131. “Luck: when your burst of energy doesn’t run afoul of someone else’s.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

132. “An artist usually has no friends except other artists, and usually they do not like his work.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

133. “In retrospect, our triumphs could as easily have happened to someone else; but our defeats are uniquely our own.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

134. “There are whole years for which I hope I’ll never be cross-examined, for I could not give an alibi.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

135. “The neurotic circles ceaselessly above a fogged-in airport.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

136. “Confession is good for the conscience, but it usually bypasses the soul.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

137. “A car is useless in New York, essential everywhere else. The same with good manners.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

138. “The two main hazards of psychoanalysis: that it might fail, and that if it succeeds, you’ll never be able to forgive yourself for all those wasted years.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

139. “How tired God must be of guilt and loneliness, for that is all we ever bring to Him.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

140. “The total history of almost anyone would shock almost everyone.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

141. “All love is probationary, a fact which frightens women and exhilarates men.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

142. “Pity all newlyweds. She cooks something nice for him, and he brings her flowers, and they kiss and think: How easy marriage is.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

143. “A woman ought to look up to her husband, if only a half-inch.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

144. “Not for nothing does the neurotic suffer – but not for anything very much, either.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

145. “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.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

146. “The neurotic lies awake at night, composing letters to those he hates. He seldom thinks of dropping a line to those he loves.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

147. “We’d all like a reputation for generosity, and we’d all like to buy it cheap.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

148. “Mumps, measles, and puppy love are terrible after twenty.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

149. “Beauty often fades, but seldom so swiftly as the joy it gives us.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

150. “Hot dogs always seem better out than at home; so do French-fried potatoes; so do your children.”

— Mignon McLaughlin