Mignon McLaughlin on Knowledge

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

"A childhood can be judged sheltered or not according to which was learned first, the four-letter word or the euphemism."

"The woman just ahead of you at the supermarket checkout has all the delectable groceries you didn't even know they carried."

"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."

"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 does not undo harm to acknowledge that we have done it; but it undoes us not to acknowledge it."

"You will turn over many a futile new leaf till you learn we must all write on scratched-out pages."

"The proud man can learn humility, but he will be proud of it."

"Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers."

"If you have to do it every day, for God’s sake learn to do it well."

"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."

"The know-nothings are, unfortunately, seldom the do-nothings."