Mason Cooley

After ages of bombast, the rhetoric of virtue has become ironic and shy.

— Mason Cooley

It is hard to tell truth, and hard not to.

— Mason Cooley

Timidity keeps me safe and sad in a narrow room.

— Mason Cooley

A neurotic can neither enjoy his illusions nor give them up.

— Mason Cooley

The wretchedness of failure is the great attraction of success.

— Mason Cooley

The young break rules for fun. The old for profit.

— Mason Cooley

Living alone makes it harder to find someone to blame.

— Mason Cooley

Few friendships could survive the moodiness of love affairs.

— Mason Cooley

History takes place between the Fall and the Apocalypse, with a narrow escape route called Salvation.

— Mason Cooley

Friendship is love minus sex and plus reason. Love is friendship plus sex minus reason

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

The irrational may be attractive in the abstract, but not in cab drives, dinner guests, or elderly relatives.

— Mason Cooley

There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.

— Mason Cooley

The cues that arouse desire are changed by Fashion, but feel like the proddings of Nature.

— Mason Cooley

My mind no longer has romantic abysses, but has become shallow, with many little gaps and cracks.

— Mason Cooley

Worried about being a dull fellow? You might develop your talent for being irritating.

— Mason Cooley

Adrenalin dispels boredom. Run, you sufferers from ennui! Run for your lives!

— Mason Cooley

The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind.

— Mason Cooley

Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.

— Mason Cooley

In the street, the gaze of desire is furtive or menacing.

— Mason Cooley

Analysis is more likely to adjust evidence than to adjust itself.

— Mason Cooley

I will not tolerate your faults. They are of no use to me.

— Mason Cooley

Literature gives us a memory of lives we did not lead.

— Mason Cooley

Poor but happy is not a phrase invented by a poor person.

— Mason Cooley

Boredom and fear keep us working and obeying the laws.

— Mason Cooley

I want to appear ordinary, but I have it understood that I am not.

— Mason Cooley

The transcendental promises a vacation from history.

— Mason Cooley

I did not know I was in my prime until afterwards.

— Mason Cooley

Aimless drifting also fulfills an intention.

— Mason Cooley

At the end of every diet, the path curves back to the trough.

— Mason Cooley

I would enjoy experiencing the hollowness of success at first- hand.

— Mason Cooley

Death is always there, just beneath the surface.

— Mason Cooley

Scholars dream of finding small facts pregnant with great progeny.

— Mason Cooley

I feel disappointed, but I don't remember just what I expected.

— Mason Cooley

Not romance but companionship makes the happiness of daily life.

— Mason Cooley

Most self-laceration is more noisy than painful.

— Mason Cooley

Mathematics: silent harmonies. Music: sounding numbers.

— Mason Cooley

After a moment of shrinking back, we domesticate the grotesque.

— Mason Cooley

The smile of a politician is strong and friendly, but noncommittal.

— Mason Cooley

A skyscraper is a boast in glass and steel.

— Mason Cooley