Mason Cooley Quotes

What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance. ~ Mason Cooley

Youth demands more than ordinary life. Age clings to it. ~ Mason Cooley

Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country. ~ Mason Cooley

Self-hatred is sometimes appropriate. ~ Mason Cooley

The shades of respectability begin to close about the greying head. ~ Mason Cooley

We may eat dinner together, but everyone puts the food in his own mouth. ~ Mason Cooley

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

Idleness makes people feeble and peevish. Work makes them stalwart and prone to anger. ~ Mason Cooley

The self-righteous feel no need to be charming, and thus double their offensiveness. ~ Mason Cooley

People who behave at forty as they did at twenty must sometimes wonder why their charm is not working. ~ Mason Cooley

In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything. ~ Mason Cooley

Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows. ~ Mason Cooley

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

Never lie in writing. ~ Mason Cooley

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

An illicit love affair seems sweetly old-fashioned in the age of one night stands and orgies. ~ Mason Cooley

If I want my time wasted, I'll waste it myself. ~ Mason Cooley

When a paradox is widely believed, it is no longer recognized as a paradox. ~ Mason Cooley

Rhyme and meter force gaps in meaning so the muse can enter. ~ Mason Cooley

Tolerance is a placid contempt. ~ Mason Cooley

Most of us live in a world that has ceased to exist. ~ Mason Cooley

Sexual boredom is ousting sexual deviance as the problem. ~ Mason Cooley

Lechery is secretive, but must finally reveal itself to at least one. ~ Mason Cooley

The beloved is the ultimate fetish. ~ Mason Cooley

Old and young disbelieve one another's truths. ~ Mason Cooley

The flesh of past lovers looks both familiar and strange. ~ Mason Cooley

Every doctrine has a theory of the beginning. ~ Mason Cooley

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris. ~ Mason Cooley

Wit saves us from being swallowed whole by life. ~ Mason Cooley

Yearning wants mostly to perpetuate itself. ~ Mason Cooley

Strict rules of evidence would destroy psychoanalysis and literary criticism. ~ Mason Cooley

Sentimentality is the respect the cold-hearted pay to feeling. ~ Mason Cooley

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

Cheerfulness is a policy; happiness is a talent. ~ Mason Cooley

Children use all their wiles to get their way with adults. Adults do the same with children. ~ Mason Cooley

As desire recedes, the world becomes clear, pale, and empty. ~ Mason Cooley

Telescopes and binoculars endanger the ever-distant sublime. ~ Mason Cooley

An ardent lover often makes a cold friend. ~ Mason Cooley

Love sorrows are addictive as other sorrows are not. ~ Mason Cooley

Few things are worth doing perfectly. ~ Mason Cooley

No chaos, no creation. Evidence: the kitchen at mealtime. ~ Mason Cooley

Vanity is easily duped. Ambition, not. ~ Mason Cooley

I gulp down my pleasures, chew over my miseries. ~ Mason Cooley

The gods are watching, but idly, yawning. ~ Mason Cooley

Heroes are born to be troublemakers. ~ Mason Cooley

Imprudence relies on luck, prudence on method. That gives prudence less edge than it expects. ~ Mason Cooley

Passion impels our deeds; ideology supplies the explanations. ~ Mason Cooley

Logic and fact keep interfering with the easy flow of conversation. ~ Mason Cooley

For some, bottles of liquor gleam like the towers of Eldorado. ~ Mason Cooley

Art seduces, but does not exploit. ~ Mason Cooley

If you insist on asking me why I feel the way I do, I plan to take the Fifth Amendment. ~ Mason Cooley

Politics inflame the passions in a way that few beloveds can match. ~ Mason Cooley

The dignified catastrophes of tragedy bear little resemblance to the slow ruin inflicted by life. ~ Mason Cooley

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

The family is on its way out; couples go next; then no more keeping cats or parrots. ~ Mason Cooley

Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying. ~ Mason Cooley

Opportunity often goes begging. Luck, never. ~ Mason Cooley

Treat unhappiness as a defect and fewer would embrace it ~ Mason Cooley

King Kong, Count Dracula, and the Phantom of the Opera are just looking for love, like the rest of us. ~ Mason Cooley

Don't milk the cow too hard. She will kick you. ~ Mason Cooley

Thrift is an attractive idea until you get down to specifics. ~ Mason Cooley

Our detachments move us toward freedom and death. ~ Mason Cooley

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

Cynicism often draws correct conclusions, but nobody could live by its lights. ~ Mason Cooley

Young poets bewail the passing of love; old poets, the passing of time. There is surprisingly little difference. ~ Mason Cooley

The novelty we want is always close to the familiar. ~ Mason Cooley

Universal truths have become an embarrassment, but they won't quite go away. ~ Mason Cooley

Artistic inspiration ignores the law of supply and demand. ~ Mason Cooley

Modern pictures banish depiction for interfering with the workings of paint. ~ Mason Cooley

Malevolence is shameful but satisfying. ~ Mason Cooley

Critics are more committed to the rules of art than artists are. ~ Mason Cooley

Writers mean more than they say and say more than they mean. ~ Mason Cooley

A work of art is an echo chamber which repeats what people say about it. ~ Mason Cooley

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

Most people find just being themselves not enough of a show. ~ Mason Cooley

The aim of literary ambition is to demonstrate one's greatness of soul. ~ Mason Cooley

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

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

Alone, I am satisfied with myself. With others, I am beset by troubling comparisons. ~ Mason Cooley

Narcissus weeps to find that his Image does not return his love. ~ Mason Cooley

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent. ~ Mason Cooley

Loving, not the beloved, is the joy of love. The beloved, knowing this, most resolutely declines to be grateful. ~ Mason Cooley

I like the old wisdom
puns, riddles, spells, proverbs. ~ Mason Cooley

Children must be protected not because they are innocent but because they are powerless. ~ Mason Cooley

Art chooses its constraints. ~ Mason Cooley

The idealist regards facts as provisional. ~ Mason Cooley

Stutters and snorts are meaningful but not usually referential. ~ Mason Cooley

An aphorism that does not score is just one more sentence. ~ Mason Cooley

Travelers never think that they are the foreigners. ~ Mason Cooley

Chastity is now treated as a sexual problem. ~ Mason Cooley

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

A well-paid occupation is seldom spoken of as rewarding. ~ Mason Cooley

Fame now wears the halo that once crowned holiness. ~ Mason Cooley

The price of telling your troubles is having to listen to advice. ~ Mason Cooley

Fear of my cruel impulses makes me kind. ~ Mason Cooley

Only death rescues us from dying. ~ Mason Cooley

Dancers dance through their pain I shrink from mine. ~ Mason Cooley

Ideology has shaped the very sofa on which I sit. ~ Mason Cooley

Few friendships could survive the moodiness of love affairs. ~ Mason Cooley

Dignity takes alarm at the unexpected sound of laughter. ~ Mason Cooley