Good Neurotic Quotes & Sayings

When the pressures really mount, the neurotic must choose: Shall he have a good cry, or set fire to his neighbor's house? — Mignon McLaughlin

I have no religion, but I can't escape being extremely Jewish ethnically - that is, culturally. In other words, I'm not religious, but I worry and I'm neurotic. And I'm very good with money. — Sarah Silverman

Maman's death: perhaps it is the one thing in my life that I have not responded to neurotically. My grief has not been hysterical, scarcely visible to others (perhaps because the notion of "theatralizing" my mother's death would have been intolerable); and doubtless, more hysterically parading my depression, driving everyone away, ceasing to live socially, I would have been less unhappy. And I see that the non-neurotic is not good, not the right thing at all. — Roland Barthes

But beyond that, really, stop trying to be good. People's definitions of "good" vary. What one person loves, another hates. So stop obsessing over being a good writer. It doesn't matter. Too many writers are caught up with insecure thoughts of whether they are any good. It's crazy. Enough with this neurotic behavior. Time to be confident in your craft. — Jeff Goins

I swear the older I get, the more I value bad examples over good ones. It's a good thing too, because most people are egotistical, neurotic, self-absorbed peons, insistent on wearing near-sighted glasses in a far-sighted world. And it's this exact sort of myopic ignorance that has led to my groundbreaking new theory. I call it Mim's Theorem of Monkey See Monkey Don't, and what it boils down to is this: it is my belief that there are some people whose sole purpose of existence is to show the rest of how not to act. — David Arnold

I can honestly say this industry hasn't made me neurotic about my looks, except maybe my weight. I hope my clothes kind of reflect that. They're meant to make you feel good. — Stella McCartney

Three injured. Three dead.
That's what all the news reports said.
Six people caught bullets that night at Mystic - half of them died, while the other half lived.
The neurotic asshole that exists inside of me loves the symmetry of it. Three has always been my favorite number. Three books in a trilogy. Three sheets to the wind. They say the third time is the charm. Three strikes and you're out. Rock, paper, scissors... Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice... the good, the bad, and the ugly... need I go on?
Hell, there are three good Star Wars movies. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which ones I'm talking about.
They say deaths come in threes, too. — J.M. Darhower

The major problem in our lives is to decide and clarify our responsibilities. To truly be committed to a life of honesty, love and discipline, we must be willing to commit ourselves to reality. This commitment, according to Peck, "requires the willingness and the capacity to suffer continual self-examination." Such an ability requires a good relationship with oneself. This is precisely what no shame-based person has. In fact, a toxically shamed person has an adversarial relationship with himself. Toxic shame - the shame that binds us - is a core part of neurotic and character disordered syndromes of behavior. — John Bradshaw

Neurotics would like to sleep all the time, and to be awakened only when there is good news. — Mignon McLaughlin

There are days that I get neurotic with the violin. Every little adjustment will change the balance for good or for bad. It's kind of a miracle, the way the whole thing works as an acoustical whole, so perfectly balanced. — Joshua Bell

Female Mercenary. This will be a companion on your Tour. She is usually tall, thin and wiry, silent, and neurotic. Sex scares her. This is because she either came from a nunnery or was raped as a child. Or both. Somehow this inspired her to become a mercenary and she is very good at her job. You can rely on her absolutely in a fight. She can usually kill two people at once while guarding your back in between. The rest of the time, she will irritate you with lots of punctilious weapons cleaning and a perpetual insistence that a proper watch be kept. Mostly, she will have no magic talents, but sometimes, in an emergency, she will come up with a gift or vision. You will end up grudgingly admiring her. — Diana Wynne Jones

I had a counter impulse to walk out of the bar and away from the Hacienda and her. She was trouble looking for somebody to happen to. And succeeding. I raised my drink and said with false cheer: 'Luck to the gold drinkers.' She sipped at hers.'You didn't say what kind of luck, good or bad. Not that it matters, people don't get their wishes. Wishing-wells are to drown in. But I mustn't go on like that. I'm always pitying myself, and that's neurotic.' She made a visible effort, and focused her attention on me: 'Speaking of luck, you don't as if you had too much luck in your life. Some of the kicks you say you go for were kicks in the head, I bet'. — Ross Macdonald

There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes. — George Bernard Shaw

Everybody always asks me what the big surprises were that I discovered about Woody and I never have a good stock answer for that, I never know quite what to tell them other than generally that he's much less neurotic and quirky than I would have expected. — Robert B. Weide

A good sense of humour is the sign of a healthy perspective, which is why people who are uncomfortable around humour are either pompous (inflated) or neurotic (oversensitive). Pompous people mistrust humour because at some level they know their self-importance cannot survive very long in such an atmosphere, so they criticise it as "negative" or "subversive." Neurotics, sensing that humour is always ultimately critical, view it as therefore unkind and destructive, a reductio ad absurdum which leads to political correctness. Not that laughter can't be unkind and destructive. Like most manifestations of human behaviour it ranges from the loving to the hateful. The latter produces nasty racial jokes and savage teasing; the former, warm and affectionate banter, and the kind of inclusive humour that says, "Isn't the human condition absurd, but we're all in the same boat. — John Cleese

I know it's impossible for you to see peers this way, but when you're older, you start to see them - the bad kids and the good kids and all kids - as people. They're just people, who deserve to be cared for. Varying degrees of sick, varying degrees of neurotic, varying degrees of self- actualized. — John Green

We are artists. We are writers - slightly neurotic and probably addicted to coffee, late nights, sunsets, laughter, tears, and heartache. Creativity is our drug. We lose ourselves in the smell of old books. We're bewildered by how we can live in a world this full of glory and grief and not be awestruck every moment. And we write stories to help wake people up before they fall asleep for good. — Steven James

Warren is stuck in Sunday School-level, pretheological fundamentalism. It is religious infantilism of the kind that Freud to conclude that religion is nothing more than neurotic wishful thinking and the refusal to grow up. I believe there is a good bit more to religion than that, but I'm afraid Freud was right about Warrenism. It is a pinata, made of brightly colored paper, filled with sweet candy, and too easily knocked apart. — Robert M. Price

My mum picked up the thread. But Chuck has learning difficulties. He has all kinds of problems - just like anyone. I know it's impossible for you to see peers this way, but when you're older, you start to see them - the bad kids and the good kids and all kids - as people. They're just people, who deserve to be cared for. Varying degrees of sick, varying degrees of neurotic, varying degrees of self-actualised. But you know, I always liked Betty, and I always had hopes for Chuck. So it's good that he's going to college, don't you think? — John Green

A person's attachment status is a fundamental determinant of their relationships, and this is reflected in the way they feel about themselves and others. Neurotic patterns can be seen as originating here because, where core attachments are problematic, they will have a powerful influence on the way someone sees the world and their behaviour. Where there is a secure core state, a person feels good about themselves and their capacity to be effective and pursue their projects. Where the core state is insecure, defensive strategies come into play. — Jeremy Holmes

I actually don't like westerns much. I like good westerns, but it isn't my preferred genre. There are all kinds of westerns: acid westerns, '70s westerns, Nicholas Ray's neurotic westerns. The ones I tend to like are nutso westerns. — Andrew Dominik

I suppose you think I am going to give you one of those 'You are going out into the world' speeches. Well, you are perfectly right. You are going out into the world and it is a mess, a frightened, neurotic, gibbering mess. And there isn't anyone out there to help you because all the people who are already out there are in a worse state than you are, because they have been there longer and a good number of them have given up. — John Steinbeck

The problem of unmet expectations in marriage is primarily a problem of stereotyping. Each and every human being on this planet is a unique person. Since marriage is inevitably a relationship between two unique people, no one marriage is going to be exactly like any other. Yet we tend to wed with explicit visions of what a "good" marriage ought to be like. Then we suffer enormously from trying to force the relationship to fit the stereotype and from the neurotic guilt and anger we experience when we fail to pull it off. — M. Scott Peck

I have this theory," says Andy Stone, seated in his office at Prudential-Bache Securities. "Wall Street makes its best producers into
managers. The reward for being a good producer is to be made a
manager. The best producers are cutthroat, competitive, and often
neurotic and paranoid. You turn those people into managers, and they go
after each other. They no longer have the outlet for their instincts that
producing gave them. They usually aren't well suited to be managers.
Half of them get thrown out because they are bad. Another quarter get
muscled out because of politics. The guys left behind are just the most
ruthless of the bunch. That's why there are cycles on Wall Street - why
Salomon Brothers is getting crunched now - because the ruthless people
are bad for the business but can only be washed out by proven failure. — Michael Lewis

No good neurotic finds it difficult to be both opinionated and indecisive. — Mignon McLaughlin

Fantasy, an unflagging optimism is necessary for a writer at all stages of this rough game. A kind of madness is therefore necessary, when there is every logical reason for a state of depression and discouragement. Perhaps the fact that I can react with utter gloom to this is what keeps me from being psychotic and keeps me merely neurotic. I am doing quite a good day's work today. But I am also aware of the madness that actually sustains me, and I am not made more comfortable or happy by it. — Patricia Highsmith

Going out with other actors is never good; actresses are neurotic, and actors are horrendous egotists. — Chris O'Dowd

The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing. Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination, consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing, and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that's on a good day. — Robert De Niro