The Neurotic's Notebook

Nobody knows the trouble we’ve seen — but we keep trying to tell them.

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

Your children tell you casually years later what it would have killed you with worry to know at the time.

Every martyr comes with a built-in bully.

Neurotics make poor patriots; if you’re ashamed of something as big as yourself, it’s hard to be proud of something as small as your country.

Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones.

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.

Fields can lie fallow, but we cannot; we have less time.

Convinced that you’re not ungrateful to others, but they are to you? Congratulations, you’re a true neurotic.

Vengefulness is self-pity’s first cousin, loneliness its favorite climate, whiskey its best friend.

A bore: one who knows as well as you do what he is going to say.

An enemy: one who has his own best welfare at heart, not yours.

A friend: one who pretends he’s as interested in your welfare as in his own.

An acquaintance: somebody you nod to if he nods first.

If you are neurotic and wish to hide it, go easy on coffee, pills, cigarettes, and alcohol, and keep your mouth shut.

To the neurotic, each love affair seems like a curtain going up, each quarrel like a curtain going down forever.