Mason Cooley Quotes

Leisure unmasks our weaknesses.

The truths I shun follow me, mumbling.

To appear well dressed, be skinny and tall.

Sex and writing live on playful cruelties.

The familiar changes as we cling to it.

If you belong to the underclass, you are already guilty.

Even in writing an annual report, the unconscious plays a role.

The limitations of pleasure cannot be overcome by more pleasure.

The meaning of today will not be clear until tomorrow.

Prudence suspects that happiness is a bait set by risk.

The world needs an enema.

Simplicity is a strict taskmaster.

The Ordinary Life: the misery seems planned, the happiness accidental.

Fluency avoids hard thoughts.

Sometimes I dread loneliness more than bores. Other times, the reverse.

I am open-minded on all questions I care nothing about.

Masks are what they seem to be; not so the faces beneath them.

Fears and lies intensify consciousness.

The lazy manage to keep up with the earth's rotation just as well as the industrious.

When appearance and reality coincide, philosophy and literary criticism find themselves with nothing to say.

Listen to what people say about themselves; they will tell you everything you need to know.

Health foods make promises that only the Second Coming could fulfill.

I tried self-sacrifice a couple of times in my youth.

The young are amazed when they suffer.

The horse stares at its captor, barely remembering the free kicks of youth.

Intelligence without power cannibalizes itself.

Suspicion is the beginning of wisdom, and of madness.

The rich are never as possessed by their riches as the poor are by their poverty.

Rule of religion: purpose breathes even in dirt and stones.

Never try to leap from a standstill.

Politicians love change, but of details only.

Those who refuse to play second fiddle may wind up playing no fiddle at all.

Only the most lucid can see their love as comedy.

Vice is a dreary business. And virtue is not a lot of fun, either.

A suburb is an attempt to get out of reach of the city without having the city be out of reach.

Energy falls just short of being joy.

As children, our protests availed little. As adults, the same.

The aphorism sometimes casts off cynicism and expresses strong feeling.

Fortuna smiles and frowns according to a timetable surprising even to herself.

True wit has a grave intention.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

Sorrow also fulfills Desire. Example: the Soaps.

Promiscuity: optimism, free enterprise, mobility--the American Dream.

When love ends, we cry out against destiny. When friendship ends, we cry out against our friend.

Guilt agonizes over trifles, ignores habitual wrongdoing.

Snarls and sobs show that a love affair is getting serious.

I am never more myself than in my self-betrayals.

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.