Mason Cooley

The lonely become either thoughtful or empty.

— Mason Cooley

Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.

— Mason Cooley

Sloth, not ill-will, makes me unjust.

— Mason Cooley

To be sexy, nudes need a little underwear.

— Mason Cooley

Love begins with an image; lust with a sensation.

— Mason Cooley

Many pains are imaginary, but all joys are real.

— Mason Cooley

Grandiosity lessens as work proceeds.

— Mason Cooley

Treat unhappiness as a defect and fewer would embrace it.

— Mason Cooley

Old photograph: amid the set poses of her family, a young girl smiles and raises her hand a little.

— Mason Cooley

Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.

— Mason Cooley

In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth.

— Mason Cooley

Complainers rule out happiness, mentioning it only as something lost.

— Mason Cooley

Violence stops thought. Hence its popularity as a pain-killer.

— Mason Cooley

Rescue someone unwilling to look after himself, and he will cling to you like a dangerous illness.

— Mason Cooley

Home again, I can groan, scratch, and talk to myself.

— Mason Cooley

Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.

— Mason Cooley

Amazing that the human race has taken enough time out from thinking about food or sex to create the arts and sciences.

— Mason Cooley

The powerless worship Luck and Fate.

— Mason Cooley

Many try to force the past to change.

— Mason Cooley

Helplessness is a mighty power.

— Mason Cooley

My nostalgia is for the impossible.

— Mason Cooley

Duty is whatever opposes inclination.

— Mason Cooley

While we are reading, we are all Don Quixote.

— Mason Cooley

Diplomats lie with a heavy sense of destiny.

— Mason Cooley

Old age likes indecency. It's a sign of life.

— Mason Cooley

Beggars market their incapacity.

— Mason Cooley

Too timid to talk back, I shot my adversary.

— Mason Cooley

Successful innovations become conventions.

— Mason Cooley

Wealth makes the laws that poverty must obey.

— Mason Cooley

Swindlers are notoriously gullible.

— Mason Cooley

Sincerity guarantees nothing but itself.

— Mason Cooley

Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.

— Mason Cooley

Boast quietly, with decorum.

— Mason Cooley

Even in rapture, part of the mind watches.

— Mason Cooley

Yearning wants mostly to perpetuate itself.

— Mason Cooley

Most reputations are not ruined but forgotten.

— Mason Cooley

Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country.

— Mason Cooley

Rage against the world, if you like, but quietly, or the Guardians will awake.

— Mason Cooley

When a man bores a woman, she complains. When a woman bores a man, he ignores her.

— Mason Cooley

Reading gives you some place to go when you have to stay where you are.

— Mason Cooley