Mason Cooley

You gave me a significant look, but significant of what?

— Mason Cooley

Metaphysics keeps surviving its obituaries.

— Mason Cooley

Every doctrine has a theory of the beginning.

— Mason Cooley

If the current is right, one can drift to success.

— Mason Cooley

I tried good taste, but the strain was too much for me.

— Mason Cooley

Every lover's lament has an element of boasting.

— Mason Cooley

I read here and there in books, enjoying the examples and ignoring the argument.

— Mason Cooley

Commitments, not feelings, hold life together.

— Mason Cooley

Sometimes I discover I have changed my mind because I have forgotten what I used to think.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

The greater the privilege, the more hidden the arrogance. The Emperor of China need not exist.

— Mason Cooley

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

— 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

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

— Mason Cooley

Great talkers are trying to fill the gap between themselves and others, but only widen it.

— Mason Cooley

Proverbial wisdom counsels against risk and change. But sitting ducks fare worst of all.

— Mason Cooley

Liberal Doctrine: it is not children who misbehave, but parents.

— Mason Cooley

I have forgiven you. Nevertheless, begone!

— Mason Cooley

I am most drawn to writing when I have something else urgent to do.

— Mason Cooley

The grand style is available now only in old poems, museums, and parodies.

— Mason Cooley

Eccentricity gives misfits a way of fitting in.

— Mason Cooley

A quiet well-behaved boy is likely to be both frightened and ambitious.

— Mason Cooley

Politicians love change, but of details only.

— Mason Cooley

A fastidious taste is best indoors, away from nature and the city.

— Mason Cooley

The Puritan sours his pleasures by disguising them as duties.

— Mason Cooley

The winner gives up his chance to be a good sport.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

A moratorium on opportunities, please. I need to recover from the last one.

— Mason Cooley

We often disguise our reflexes as deliberate actions.

— Mason Cooley

Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.

— Mason Cooley

To understand someone, find out how he spends his money.

— Mason Cooley

After sixty, the self-questioning of middle age is obsolete.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

One eventually has enough even of oneself.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Well-behaved: he always speaks as if his mother might be listening.

— Mason Cooley

Don't tell me it's raining when you're peeing on me!

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

The more powerless people are, the longer they are kept waiting.

— Mason Cooley

Like an electric tea-kettle, pornography comes to a boil very fast.

— Mason Cooley