Mason Cooley Quotes

We often disguise our reflexes as deliberate actions.

Beggars remind us that not all miseries arise from our ideas.

A successful restaurant makes everything in it, including the patrons, seem a little better than they are.

Malice is always authentic and sincere.

Good parties create a temporary youthfulness.

At the end of every diet, the path curves back to the trough.

The neuroses parody the virtues.

When poets go off the boil, they sound like bumble bees; when critics do, they sound like sewing machines.

Insecurity is not just a state of mind.

Cruelty is softened by fear, not pity.

Contempt for others, like masturbation, is best as a secret pleasure.

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

In youth, love and art. In age, investments and antiques.

Astrology: do we make a hullabaloo among the stars, or do they make a hullabaloo down here?

I am now old enough to make common cause with my predecessors against my successors.

Jealousy fuses megalomania and self-abandonment.

Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.

First literature came to refer only to itself, the literary theory.

Travelling, I worry about luggage, prices, and strange food. At home, I am free to broaden my mind by thinking about the higher things.

Originality finds the unexpected but inevitable next step.

Being cultured is the least expensive form of respectability.

Money is a better tonic than Geritol.

A blunt statement can be as false as any other.

Opportunity knocks, but doesn't always answer to its name.

The psychiatrist's office: the only place I can be sure my story will be treated as sad, but interesting.

Indifference is an excellent substitute for patience.

Drunks do not have friends, but accomplices.

Many count on their disadvantages to cover for them.

Ironic and jittery, we are puzzled by the old heroes with their fighting, boasting, and cocksure lovemaking.

Only death goes deeper than sex.

Explanations comfort us by giving the impression that there is an order in things.

Illusions are hazardous, and so are disillusions.

When I try to portray to myself my heart's desire, nothing happens.

Dancing and running shake up the chemistry of happiness.

The best hand always believes in playing by the rules.

Complaining is the favorite pastime of millions.

A free spirit must be able to surmount anxiety time after time.

Bravery despite defeat is praiseworthy. Victory despite cowardice is beyond praise.

Since we hate the same people, we should be friends.

After a moment of shrinking back, we domesticate the grotesque.

Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.

When money disappears, we soon understand the power of absence.

Mind and body obstruct one another's pleasures.

Often, when I want to consult my impulses, I cannot find them.

Methodology gives those with no ideas something to do.

The sheen of ocean gleams on the blue fish-plate.

The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind.

Plato's Symposium shows that flirtation and philosophy can further one another.