Mason Cooley

Good books do not make people wiser or happier--only more conscious.

— Mason Cooley

The extravagance of intellect outstrips the extravagance of desire.

— Mason Cooley

The aphorism wants to be at the same time both main line and off beat.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.

— Mason Cooley

The muse is blind as Cupid and skittish as Diana.

— Mason Cooley

The villain may be good looking, but his smile is never quite right.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Weakness is a better teacher than strength. Weakness must learn to understand the obstacles that strength brushes aside.

— Mason Cooley

Seek and Hide: the Lover gazes at the Beloved. The Beloved looks away. The Beloved turns and looks at the Lover. The…

— Mason Cooley

After rejection - misery, then thoughts of revenge, and finally, oh well, another try elsewhere.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Posterity--the forlorn child of nineteenth century optimism--grows ever harder to conceive.

— Mason Cooley

Moralists love to discourse on the hollowness of success; about the hollowness of failure they are silent.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Children consider disliking their parents natural, but if the dislike is returned, they are outraged.

— Mason Cooley

The real reality is always just around the corner.

— Mason Cooley

Reversing a proposition rearranges its terms, but still keeps out new terms.

— Mason Cooley

By the time I have clarified a thought, I no longer want to think it.

— Mason Cooley

Lonely people keep up a ceaseless flow of commentary on themselves.

— Mason Cooley

Families in which nothing is ever discussed usually have a lot not to discuss.

— Mason Cooley

Creativity is not a substitute for competence.

— Mason Cooley

Worrying is as futile as boredom, but harder work.

— Mason Cooley

A sure cure for boredom: fast until you are ravenous.

— Mason Cooley

Many pains are imaginary, but all joys are real.

— Mason Cooley

With age, comfort becomes more seductive than beauty.

— Mason Cooley

Old age: I fall asleep during the funerals of my friends.

— Mason Cooley

I answered my father's demands for sympathy with silence.

— Mason Cooley

Original sin reassures us that our slip was not the first.

— Mason Cooley

Go ahead and voice your criticisms, but don't expect to be invited back.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

My love grows wide and shallow in an effort to spread my losses.

— Mason Cooley

Sex and writing live on playful cruelties.

— Mason Cooley

Passion impels our deeds; ideology supplies the explanations.

— Mason Cooley

The past is always waiting to entangle and deflect us.

— Mason Cooley

What is Providence for you may be Nemesis for me.

— Mason Cooley

Unemployment diminishes people. Leisure enlarges them.

— Mason Cooley

Originality is in the eye of the beholder.

— Mason Cooley

If I can't serve as a role model, let me serve as a warning.

— Mason Cooley

silence is the most intolerable of answers.

— Mason Cooley