The Neurotic's Notebook

If you had an unhappy childhood, you will always want to sleep late in the morning.

It must infuriate our children to see us always so much more forebearing with everybody else’s.

The two unhappiest years in a woman’s life: when she is thirteen, and when her daughter is.

Neurotics love being in debt; it proves that someone trusts them.

When men complain that they don’t understand women, they mean they don’t want to be bothered trying.

The mark of the neurotic: to imagine that you’re the only one who cares deeply about anything.

My right hand knows what my left is doing, but is too fine to do it.

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

Neurotics are always afraid of missing something: a remark, a reward, a reprieve.

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

We hear only half of what is said to us, understand only half of that, believe only half of that, and remember only half of that.

It’s axiomatic, in geometry, that a thing is always equal to itself. But any neurotic can tell you better, for he is not.

“Pull yourself together” is seldom said to anyone who can.

Throughout our lives, we see in the mirror the same innocent trusting face we have seen there since childhood.

Don’t ask others to forgive in you a sin they’re dying to commit themselves.

The neurotic is always leaning on someone who is already leaning on someone else.

We care only about ourselves, and a handful of other attractive people.

If you both love and hate your children, exaggerate the hatred, lest they go through life believing that this sorry mixture is all there is of love.

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