Mason Cooley

Later is always my first choice.

— Mason Cooley

Heroes are born to be troublemakers.

— Mason Cooley

Age: I go slower as time goes faster.

— Mason Cooley

Comedy distances pain, but leaves signs of it everywhere.

— Mason Cooley

Pleasing illusion: if my childhood had been the Paradise it should have been, all would now be well.

— Mason Cooley

The public is a hibernating bear, hard to awaken and fond of honey.

— Mason Cooley

The critic roams through culture, looking for prey.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Failure makes us envious. Success makes us greedy.

— Mason Cooley

Pornography supplies the only really safe sex.

— Mason Cooley

Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.

— Mason Cooley

Vice is a dreary business. And virtue is not a lot of fun, either.

— Mason Cooley

Power makes gods. Virtue makes martyrs.

— Mason Cooley

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

— Mason Cooley

To avoid discord, never put two wise people in the same room.

— Mason Cooley

The passion for money is never fickle.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

The bathroom scale knows nothing of extenuating circumstances.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Our most important decisions are made while we are thinking about something else.

— Mason Cooley

Wit saves us from being swallowed whole by life.

— Mason Cooley

The avant-garde is now stranded in the past.

— Mason Cooley

Timidity keeps me safe and sad in a narrow room.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Scholarship can find little to say about the obvious.

— Mason Cooley