Mignon McLaughlin

"In the theatre, as in life, we prefer a villain with a sense of humor to a hero without one."

"Theatre audiences can't be made to think and cry: at best, they can be made to think and laugh, or to feel and cry."

"Men prefer brief praise, pitched high; women are satisfied with praise in a lower key, just so it goes on and on."

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

"Few women care what a man looks like, and a good thing, too."

"Women are never landlocked: they’re always mere minutes away from the briny deep of tears."

"An attractive woman likes feminine company until she's twenty, and after she's twenty-five."

"Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those changes that would make all the difference."

"Don't be yourself-be someone a little nicer."

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

"Youth is not enough. And love is not enough. And success is not enough. And, if we could achieve it, enough would not be enough."

"We are all born brave, trusting, and greedy, and most of us manage to remain greedy."

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

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

"There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today."

"Once you become self-conscious, there is no end to it; once you start to doubt, there is no room for anything else."

"Our strength is often composed of the weakness that we're damned if we're going to show."

"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."

"The fear of being laughed at makes cowards of us all."

"We'd all like a reputation for generosity, and we'd all like to buy it cheap."

"It's the most unhappy people who most fear change."

"Despair is anger with no place to go."

"Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent."

"For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance."

"The head never rules the heart, but just becomes its partner in crime."

"Nobody really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why."

"What we forgive too freely doesn’t stay forgiven."

"If you hate your lot but wouldn't trade it, it's not your lot you hate."

"Others follow patterns; we alone are unpredictable."

"No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated, we will not really be moved unless we have already half thought of it ourselves."