Mason Cooley Quotes

Some marriages depend on domestic arguments the way the courts depend on litigation.

Think of the many different relations of form and content. E.g., the many pairs of trousers and what's in them.

Jokes are unanswerable objections.

Cruel impulses stir all about my kindly heart.

When courtesy fails, be nasty, brutish, and short.

The ninety percent of human experience that does not fit into established narrative patterns falls into oblivion.

Aimless drifting also fulfills an intention.

Popular culture is seductive; high culture is imperious.

Out of power, Marxism can develop critical intelligence; in power, it quickly becomes stupid.

At retirement, switching from "I must" to "I want" leaves me puzzled and uneasy.

Conscience is the moralized form of self-absorption.

Most of my decisions in life seem absent-minded but inevitable.

As I review my life, I feel I must have missed the point, either then or now.

If the current is right, one can drift to success.

Adversity can strengthen us if it does not go on too long.

Genius knows where the questions are hidden.

Intelligence in isolation turns to aimless marauding.

Intelligence makes sincerity difficult.

I really like life, don't you? There's nothing else quite like it.

Malevolence is shameful but satisfying.

Once wealth and beauty are gone, there is always rural life.

Eccentricity is originality that leads nowhere.

As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.

Everyone fears and courts his own demon.

Money: power at its most liquid.

Vacations prove that a life of pleasure is overrated.

Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.

Disobedient parents are a great trouble to their children.

Many have never felt strong, but everyone knows what it is to feel weak.

A sense of absurdity interferes with my efforts to appear venerable.

Authority is conferred by position, not character.

Victory brings obliviousness; defeat, attentiveness.

If I had found the words I was looking for, I would not have read so much.

I am interested in a hundred things, but only slightly.

Secrets die when kept or revealed. They live by being faintly and uncertainly repeated.

To be sexy, nudes need a little underwear.

If suffering brought wisdom, the dentist's office would be full of luminous ideas.

Travelers never think that they are the foreigners.

Art seduces, but does not exploit.

I dream of vague shapes that hint of my heart's desire.

Emblem: the carapace of the great crowned snail is painted with all the flags of the United Nations.

To Jane Austen, every fool is a treasure trove.

The New York action painters want their pictures to jump off the walls and chase you down the street.

One who can find lemons sweet and grapes sour is ready for Dame Fortune.

My mother wanted to shrink from my clinging, but did not.

Self-hatred is sometimes appropriate.

Worry is not thought; complaining is not action.

Without asceticism, self-indulgence would be insignificant.