Mason Cooley Quotes

Our vices are attempts to combine self-medication and enjoyment.

Either offer me something I really like, or stop trying to tempt me.

Altruism is for those who cannot endure their desires.

Hatred makes me energetic, but confused.

Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.

Lying just for the fun of it is either art or pathology.

Money is to my social existence what health is to my body.

Children enjoy inflicting pain until unhappiness teaches them tenderness.

Self-pity dries up our sympathy for others.

An academic dialect is perfected when its terms are hard to understand and refer only to one another.

Wit puts politicians at risk.

Until I am ready to lose weight, I cannot see how fat I am.

Reading a great book causes jolts and frights.

Which is the supplement? Fantasy or daily routine?

Wisdom has lost repute because it so often applies to a state of affairs that no longer exists.

Every seeming equality conceals a hierarchy.

Why do we never expect dull people to be rascals?

The beginning sets the rules.

A dense undergrowth of extension cords sustains my upper world of lights, music, and machines of comfort.

Pain pays no attention to moans or excuses.

The most reliable pleasure afforded by theater is the intermission.

I do not regret the folly of my youth, but the timidity.

A skyscraper is a boast in glass and steel.

The party out of office becomes the articulate one.

My parents wanted me to solace them for sorrows they denied having had.

The telephone gives us the happiness of being together yet safely apart.

Sincerity: willingness to spend one's own money.

Drunks conjure an endless drama from their bottles.

Dignity takes alarm at the unexpected sound of laughter.

The philosophy of hedonism means little to lovers of pleasure. They have no inclination to read philosophy, or to write it.

Experience teaches us, but we scarcely know what.

Our troubles keep us going.

Virtue sometimes pretends. Vice is always sincere.

Beauty is lyrical. Ugliness is elegiac.

Now defined as art, the totem has lost cult, taboo, and custom.

Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.

When death comes too near, comedy and tragedy fall silent.

The sentimental want to be thrilled by everything.

Supermarkets depict abundance; boutiques exclusiveness; roadside stands authenticity.

Great talkers do not stop for breath, and never look at the clock.

Prudence does not save us, but shows us pictures of our destroyers.

In love as in art, good technique helps.

Our civilization is shifting from science and technology to rhetoric and litigation.

I would be glad to worship success if I could find her.

Cure for an obsession: get another one.

I know God exits, but I don't know where.

There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.

History goes out of control almost as often as nature does.