Mason Cooley Quotes

Mason Cooley delivers sly, witty reflections that tease the oddities of love, politics and the uncanny.

50 quotes

1. When you can't figure out what to do, it's time for a nap.

2. Trust, but look for the exits.

3. Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.

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

5. Travelers never think that THEY are the foreigners.

6. In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.

7. Theory can leave questions unanswered, but practice has to come up with something.

8. Thinking about the universe has now been handed over to specialists. The rest of us merely read about it.

9. Self-pity makes people callous.

10. A frog in love would not be enchanted to learn that her beloved had turned into Prince Charming.

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

12. Every book teaches a lesson, even if the lesson is only that one has chosen the wrong book.

13. Living alone is good for privacy, bad for full-scale cooking and moving heavy furniture.

14. The sacred is found boring by many who find the uncanny fascinating.

15. Studying the past may suggest new ways of going wrong.

16. Talk about yourself as much as you like, but do not expect others to listen.

17. Many try to force the past to change.

18. Inequality is a fact. Equality is a value.

19. Listening to people keeps them entertained.

20. If you are going to be rude, be quick about it.

21. Hypocrisy is the outside of cynicism.

22. An insult angers me. Being ignored crushes me.

23. For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect.

24. Giving out crowns to everyone will not make a nation of kings.

25. A quiet fool can go undiscovered for a long time.

26. I regret. I apologize. I blame myself. I continue as before.

27. 'Why not?' is a slogan for an interesting life.

28. Beautiful poeple are forgiven more often than the rest.

29. The modernist writers found despair inspirational.

30. Even the most abject have a sense of superiority based on powerful though undefined merits.

31. Money comes to life as it is spent.

32. Even the most fickle are faithful to a few bad habits.

33. Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted.

34. Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty-the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.

35. Experience teaches us, but we scarcely know what.

36. The body has a mind of its own.

37. My intentions go one way, my desires another. Thus I feel both self-indulgent and deprived.

38. The Puritan sours his pleasures by disguising them as duties.

39. Unlike the actual, the fictional explains itself.

40. Vacations prove that a life of pleasure is overrated.

41. Outside literature, high-flown sentiments are merely exasperating.

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

43. Reading a great book causes jolts and frights.

44. The beloved is the ultimate fetish.

45. Nature often seems like an idea that has had its day.

46. Death is frightening, and so is Eternal Life.

47. To avoid taking responsibility, I become unresponsive but hang on until the other person leaves me.

48. Writers tell more truths, and more lies, than most.

49. In describing someone's character, I reveal my own.

50. The Muses inspire art and pretend not to notice when Mammon buys it.