Mason Cooley

I love you to distraction, but Icannot see you until Thursday.

— Mason Cooley

Plato's Symposium shows that flirtation and philosophy can further one another.

— Mason Cooley

My parents wanted me to solace them for sorrows they denied having had.

— Mason Cooley

Theory now: concern for truth must not hobble our discussion.

— Mason Cooley

Even a cow creates ambiguous signifiers. The moo of mystery.

— Mason Cooley

Curiosity engenders both science and scandal.

— Mason Cooley

Lechery is secretive, but must finally reveal itself to at least one.

— Mason Cooley

The realism of failure, the romance of success.

— Mason Cooley

The novelty we want is always close to the familiar.

— Mason Cooley

Nothing more cheerful than talking about our friends shortcomings.

— Mason Cooley

Death is hacking away at my address book and party lists.

— Mason Cooley

Vacations prove that a life of pleasure is overrated.

— Mason Cooley

Rule of science: only exclude purpose, and Nature will reveal her causes.

— Mason Cooley

As a comforter, philosophy cannot compete with a good dinner.

— Mason Cooley

Health can be squandered, but not stored up.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Victorian sorrow: the stars are winking in the sky, but not for us.

— Mason Cooley

Attachments and bereavements are inseparable.

— Mason Cooley

Eagerness to please attracts bullies and bores.

— Mason Cooley

An insult angers me. Being ignored crushes me.

— Mason Cooley

In New York, one must collapse to be indolent.

— Mason Cooley

The facts, even the real ones, must be imagined before they can be stated.

— Mason Cooley

Modernized by tin roofs and T-shirts, Third World poverty is no longer picturesque.

— Mason Cooley

Drunks do not have friends, but accomplices.

— Mason Cooley

Critics are more committed to the rules of art than artists are.

— Mason Cooley

Every seeming equality conceals a hierarchy.

— Mason Cooley

Even in the midst of love-making, writers are working on the description.

— Mason Cooley

Unlike the ambiguity of life, the ambiguity of language does reach a limit.

— Mason Cooley

Ideology has shaped the very sofa on which I sit.

— Mason Cooley

I obey my own commands about as often as others do.

— Mason Cooley

Innovation violates tradition--attacks it in public and steals from it in private.

— Mason Cooley

Contempt for others, like masturbation, is best as a secret pleasure.

— Mason Cooley

In the museums, everything is in quotation marks.

— Mason Cooley

Diplomats lie with a heavy sense of destiny.

— Mason Cooley

When disaster waves, I try not to wave back.

— Mason Cooley

The eros of advertising is lurid but not specific.

— Mason Cooley

If you are going to be rude, be quick about it.

— Mason Cooley

My thought has been shaped by books; my desires by pictures.

— Mason Cooley

While we are reading, we are all Don Quixote.

— Mason Cooley

Asceticism and celibacy can conceal many incapacities.

— Mason Cooley