Mignon McLaughlin Quotes

Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.

I am not frightened of much, but I wouldn't like to get ill.

I never had a conscious fear of death, but I did have a conscious fear of sickness. By the time I completed medical school, that fear was gone.

When I was in college, I had a fear of cancer.

More people worry themselves to death than bleed to death.

Most of those evils we poor mortals know From doctors and imagination flow.

All the powers of imagination combine in hypochondria.

Ever since I've been young I've been fascinated by the human body. I've written songs about it, but you can become quite morbid if you think about it too much - paranoid and a hypochondriac.

When they tell you that you have cancer, you panic.

Among the Internet's many gains for humanity, decreasing paranoia has not been one of them. Anything from that lump under your armpit to what's lurking in the sea - just type it into a search engine and watch your nerves explode.

The trouble with being a hypochondriac these days is that antibiotics have cured all the good diseases.

New diseases like SARS and bird flu cause anxiety in the community. People get worried, some to the extent that it even affects their health. You feel very sad, and yet you must carry on and maintain your cool in very trying and difficult moments. You have to tough it out.

'Cancer' is such a frightening word.

I am scared of getting old. I am scared of being ill.

I've always been fascinated by the human body, but you can become quite morbid and paranoid if you think too much.

The word 'cancer' carries with it enormous fear, fear for the future, fear for family.

For the average person, taken to their sick bed, it takes a serious bout of pneumonia or a full body cast to completely forget the life they had prior to falling off the rollercoaster. I, however, will do this over a paper cut on my thumb, obsessing of said cut and being generally consumed by it.

Before getting meningitis, I was such a hypochondriac, worrying about the slightest ache. Ironically, I overlooked meningitis because the symptoms seemed like flu. I guess you don't realise how healthy you are until it is taken away from you.

The spread of the disease is under control. What I worry about is the spread of fear of the disease is not under control.

I'm diabetic.

I have Googled so many things related to possible diseases, and it's always ridiculous. Like, 'My toe is hurting. Do I have cancer?' 'I have a scratch in my eye. Am I going to die soon?' 'Is eating a soup going to make me die?'

In the face of such overwhelming statistical possibilities hypochondria has always seems to me to be the only rational position to take on life.

Let me tell you something about hypochondria: It's a pernicious, undermining little demon. It won't kill you, but it will sap the color from your life so that in the loveliest moments, the moments of grace, you are hit with that whisper in your ear that takes it all away. I'm sick, I'm dying - I just don't know it yet.

The cancer I don't have is everywhere now.

I think hypochondria always plays a part in the healthcare landscape.