Mason Cooley

Flattery has to overcome my mistrust, and it does.

— Mason Cooley

Learned researches lead to headaches, constipation, and befuddled quarreling.

— Mason Cooley

Affection reproaches, but does not denounce.

— Mason Cooley

If you are going to break a Law of Art, make the crime interesting.

— Mason Cooley

Clothes make the body both mysterious and historical.

— Mason Cooley

Holding unconventional opinions makes people feel they have strong characters.

— Mason Cooley

My neglected duties crowd around me in my dreams, murmuring.

— Mason Cooley

Wallace Stevens: the Platonist celebrates endless change, but with regret.

— Mason Cooley

All anger feels like righteous anger; sorrow does not care whether it is righteous or not.

— Mason Cooley

The harp is an insipid instrument--no good for dancing, feasting, or marching, only for sitting primly in a parlor or on a…

— Mason Cooley

The interest in Wisdom is fading. Soon there will not be enough left to support the aphorism, even though it tries to…

— Mason Cooley

The madness of love can always be suspended--to cook dinner or catch a plane, for instance.

— Mason Cooley

One's fetishes are fascinating, but not because of their beauty or significance. The same could be said for one's genitals, or one's…

— Mason Cooley

Without the blessing of cowardice, the world would long since have been torn to bits.

— Mason Cooley

Political correctness is driving machismo underground and recalling effeminacy from exile.

— Mason Cooley

The past goes right on pulling me apart, though I can scarcely remember the people or the issues.

— Mason Cooley

Reclusive? The inner city will secure your privacy better than any desert cave.

— Mason Cooley

Cruel impulses stir all about my kindly heart.

— Mason Cooley

Fruitless striving breeds less despair than inaction.

— Mason Cooley

Age must give way to youth, no doubt. But not yet, not yet.

— Mason Cooley

I have tried being surreal, but my frogs hop right back into their realistic ponds.

— Mason Cooley

Most people regard getting their way as a matter of simple justice.

— Mason Cooley

Austerity causes constipation; excess, diarrhea.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

A sympathetic look always makes me feel sorry for myself.

— Mason Cooley

Tales of adultery are much improved by period costumes.

— Mason Cooley

If success is a habit, it is a hard one to acquire.

— Mason Cooley

The aphorism sometimes casts off cynicism and expresses strong feeling.

— Mason Cooley

Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence.

— Mason Cooley

In every death, a busy world comes to an end.

— Mason Cooley

Lead the reader toward the thought, then stop a little short.

— Mason Cooley

Literature may be false, but it is not trivial.

— Mason Cooley

Good manners can render even virtue tolerable.

— Mason Cooley

People are reluctant to cite boredom as grounds for divorce.

— Mason Cooley

Something is sticking out its tongue at me from the corner of my mirror.

— Mason Cooley

The noisy vacancy of youth, the quiet vacancy of age.

— Mason Cooley

To appear well dressed, be skinny and tall.

— Mason Cooley

Beautiful people are forgiven more often than the rest.

— Mason Cooley

Imagination has rules, but wecan only guess what they are.

— Mason Cooley

Asceticism without religion is just another way of cultivating peculiar sensations.

— Mason Cooley