Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) was a short story writer and playwright with a rapier wit and an acerbic take on love, marriage, and friendship. Her aphorisms, published between 1958 and 1966, will appeal to everyone who appreciates this aristocratic, subversive genre. Not all of the collection consists of aphorisms, strictly speaking: some are simply reflections, brutally honest as they are clever, on McLaughlin's own fears and foibles. Aperçus is truly an autobiography in epigrams. No one has ever loved anyone the way everyone wants to be loved. In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing. For most of us, desire exceeds desirability, and long outlives it. Insult, not flattery, is the great aphrodisiac. It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't. Affairs are as disillusioning as marriage, and much less restful. Of course no one is as sensitive as you, but try to remember that they think they are.