Mason Cooley

Working cuts down on both folly and wisdom.

— Mason Cooley

Orgies are an early form of what will someday become sex by committee.

— Mason Cooley

Eccentricity: strength of character doubling back on itself.

— Mason Cooley

Anyone who feels like a fool has made a good beginning.

— Mason Cooley

To a suicide: You just poisoned the wrong person.

— Mason Cooley

Forget what hurt you but never forget what it thaught you.

— Mason Cooley

Many think that assigning blame settles matters.

— Mason Cooley

When sages commend excess, Desire is sick.

— Mason Cooley

In the great cities, winter glitters with art and feasting. But poetry, the country cousin, sees only the dearth of the fields.

— Mason Cooley

Ladies and gentlemen are supposed to be looked after by others, like children and pets.

— Mason Cooley

To learn a vocation, you also have to learn the frauds it practices and the promises it breaks.

— 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

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Now that I see you understand me so well, I will avoid you.

— Mason Cooley

Reading a great book causes jolts and frights.

— Mason Cooley

Think carefully before asking for justice. Mercy might be safer.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Fearful of sentimentality, I disown my tears and melting heart.

— Mason Cooley

The exhibitionist loves to flirt with shame

— Mason Cooley

The trouble with the young people today is that it is they who are young.

— Mason Cooley

The desire to be significant casts a pall.

— Mason Cooley

Vicarious living is only slightly less impossible than vicarious eating.

— Mason Cooley

To Jane Austen, every fool is a treasure trove.

— Mason Cooley

Hatred observes with more care than love does.

— Mason Cooley

When understanding would be too difficult, I become trusting.

— Mason Cooley

Wisdom is founded on memory; happiness on forgetfulness.

— Mason Cooley

I love you is the inscription on Pandora's box.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

The morose one refuses to smile even when he has just had his teeth cleaned.

— Mason Cooley

The chair as ideas fits only the bottom as idea.

— Mason Cooley

Aphorisms may equivocate, but they must not wobble.

— Mason Cooley

Dreams are distorted representations of desire. So are dream- analyses.

— Mason Cooley

Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.

— Mason Cooley

An event is not over until everyone is tired of talking about it.

— Mason Cooley

Scepticism is always a back road leading to some credo or other.

— Mason Cooley

Sentimentality is the respect the cold-hearted pay to feeling.

— Mason Cooley

The cow's point of view deserves more literary attention.

— Mason Cooley