Mason Cooley

A well-paid occupation is seldom spoken of as "rewarding.

— Mason Cooley

If a problem is insoluble, it is Necessity. Leave it alone.

— Mason Cooley

When I try to portray to myself my heart's desire, nothing happens.

— Mason Cooley

Lonely people console themselves with self-absorption or curiosity.

— Mason Cooley

Reason argues the case, but fact may determine the judgment.

— Mason Cooley

Position yourself well enough, and circumstances will do the rest.

— Mason Cooley

Three people marooned on a desert island would soon reinvent politics.

— Mason Cooley

The life of pleasure breeds boredom. The life of duty breeds resentment.

— Mason Cooley

Proverbial wisdom counsels against risk and change. But sitting ducks fare worst of all.

— Mason Cooley

If I could do my life over, I would try to cleanse at least my pleasures of self-pity.

— Mason Cooley

Free competition exists inside shelters of law, custom, insurance, political approval, and carefully protected status.

— Mason Cooley

Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.

— Mason Cooley

Astrology: do we make a hullabaloo among the stars, or do they make a hullabaloo down here?

— Mason Cooley

Good advice is never as helpful as an interest-free loan.

— Mason Cooley

Dogs often remind us of the human, ail-too human. Cats, never.

— Mason Cooley

Only the strong and the hopeful are able to revolt.

— Mason Cooley

A laughing Lear would be monstrous. Not so a laughing Romeo and Juliet.

— Mason Cooley

Writing an upbeat aphorism is a temptation, but decorum forbids.

— Mason Cooley

Self-sacrifice usually contains an unspoken demand for payment.

— Mason Cooley

Often, when I want to consult my impulses, I cannot find them.

— Mason Cooley

A work of art is an echo chamber which repeats what people say about it.

— Mason Cooley

Don't stare into a mirror when you are trying to solve a problem.

— Mason Cooley

Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.

— Mason Cooley

Writing is a refuge from unhappiness, but has its own sorrows.

— Mason Cooley

Laughing at our friends, we avenge the disappointment they have caused.

— Mason Cooley

Snarls and sobs show that a love affair is getting serious.

— Mason Cooley

The young have stolen our youthfulness, and flaunt it without shame.

— Mason Cooley

The aphorism: a platitude that swerves, or slides all the way around.

— Mason Cooley

Reading more than life teaches us to recognize ethos and pathos.

— Mason Cooley

Stated clearly enough, an idea may cancel itself out.

— Mason Cooley

The unhappy are prisoners of a single round of thought.

— Mason Cooley

Sleaze is a point by point refutation of elegance.

— Mason Cooley

Promiscuity: optimism, free enterprise, mobility--the American Dream.

— Mason Cooley

Either offer me something I really like, or stop trying to tempt me.

— Mason Cooley

City people make most of the fuss about the charms of country life.

— Mason Cooley

Friends are sometimes boring, but enemies never.

— Mason Cooley

For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect.

— Mason Cooley

Transcendence is something between a metaphor and a miracle.

— Mason Cooley

When love ends, the beloved is no longer standing on a pedestal, but in a hole.

— Mason Cooley

The perfect aphorism would achieve classical balance and then immediately upset it.

— Mason Cooley