Mason Cooley

Procrastination and impatience form a system of checks and balances.

— Mason Cooley

The horizon is more than a convention of landscape painting, less than truth.

— Mason Cooley

Even in writing an annual report, the unconscious plays a role.

— Mason Cooley

The supposed unhappiness of the rich is always a cheerful topic of conversation.

— Mason Cooley

At retirement, switching from "I must" to "I want" leaves me puzzled and uneasy.

— Mason Cooley

Carlyle: a passionate outpouring of words recommending silence and self-control.

— Mason Cooley

Profusion gives pleasure up to a point; then we become squeamish.

— Mason Cooley

Sexual attraction pairs people, but does not match them.

— Mason Cooley

Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.

— Mason Cooley

If beggars do not hate the rest of us, they are even more abject than I had imagined.

— Mason Cooley

The young are just as opinionated as the old, but have more exciting things to do than sit around airing their opinions…

— Mason Cooley

After Voltaire: envy is chained to the portico of the temple of glory and can neither enter nor leave.

— Mason Cooley

When appearance and reality coincide, philosophy and literary criticism find themselves with nothing to say.

— Mason Cooley

Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints Of the North have earned thiscrumb by their complaints.

— Mason Cooley

The beginning, middle, and end are parodied, reversed, and hidden by modernism, but not abandoned.

— Mason Cooley

After an argument, silence may mean acceptance or the continuation of resistance by other means.

— Mason Cooley

Pain pays no attention to moans or excuses.

— Mason Cooley

The critic roams through culture, looking for prey.

— Mason Cooley

Now defined as art, the totem has lost cult, taboo, and custom.

— Mason Cooley

Many have never felt strong, but everyone knows what it is to feel weak.

— Mason Cooley

To remain mysterious, say little and do nothing.

— Mason Cooley

Middle age went by while I was mourning for my lost youth.

— Mason Cooley

Every farewell combines loss and new freedom.

— Mason Cooley

Our punning minds rejoin what logic has separated.

— Mason Cooley

A goldfish is reason enough for living, if someone needs a reason.

— Mason Cooley

Alzheimer's usually comes later than AIDS, but I decline to call that progress.

— Mason Cooley

Regretting the past does not prevent me from repeating it.

— Mason Cooley

Cynicism formulates issues clearly, but only to dismiss them.

— Mason Cooley

Unlike other vices, cruelty, alas, is never boring.

— Mason Cooley

I alternate between reading cook books and reading diet books.

— Mason Cooley

Fortuna likes to find a crowd and follow it.

— Mason Cooley

Most reputations are not ruined but forgotten.

— Mason Cooley

Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying.

— Mason Cooley

Show enough regret, and your refusal will inspire gratitude.

— Mason Cooley

Strict rules of evidence would destroy psychoanalysis and literary criticism.

— Mason Cooley

Every representation, even of an orgy, is a sublimation.

— Mason Cooley

Three meals plus bedtime make four sure blessings a day.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Sleepy-head is no longer aroused by tragic imaginings.

— Mason Cooley

Small successes are still successes; great failures are still failures.

— Mason Cooley