Mignon McLaughlin on Love

"When we have been humiliated by someone we love, it takes all our strength to pretend to recover from it."

"Some women love only what they can hold in their arms; others, only what they can't."

"A woman asks little of love: only that she be able to feel like a heroine."

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

"We lavish on animals the love we are afraid to show to people. People might not return it; or worse, they might."

"The marriage of convenience has this to recommend it: we are better judges of convenience than we are of love."

"It’s easy enough to get along with a loved and loving child–at least till you try to get him to do something."

"It is a feeling at once stimulating and flat, to know that someone you do not love is in love with you."

"Naturally, the neurotic wants you to love him twice as much, for he's going to cut it in half anyway."

"We are irritated by rascals, intolerant of fools, and prepared to love the rest. But where are they?"

"If he suddenly falls in love with someone else, a husband may not start wanting a divorce; but if he suddenly makes a lot of money, he usually will."

"We all become great explorers during our first few days in a new city, or a new love affair."

"In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing."

"The hardest-learned lesson: that people have only their kind of love to give, not our kind."

"When a man comes to love a woman exactly as she had dreamed, she decides he is a weakling."

"No one can understand love who has not experienced infatuation. And no one can understand infatuation, no matter how many times he has experienced it."

"He's in for trouble—the man whose wife is detested by all women and desired by all men."

"Whether or not you love television, you've got to admit that it certainly loves itself."

"Desire is in men a hunger, in women only an appetite."

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

"There are three iron links in the neurotic's chain: unloving, unlovable, unloved."

"Any woman can talk herself into being in love with any man, for a while anyway."

"After the chills and fever of love, how nice is the 98.6 degrees of marriage!"

"Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and difficult as that."

"What we love about love is the fever, which marriage puts to bed and cures."

"All love is probationary, a fact which frightens women and exhilarates men."

"The excesses of love soon pass, but its insufficiencies torment us forever."

"Young lovers and young nations face the same problem: after orgasm, what?"

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

"If you must reread old love letters, better pick a room without mirrors."