Mason Cooley

The bathroom scale knows nothing of extenuating circumstances.

— Mason Cooley

Wisdom cannot prevent a fall, but may cushion it.

— Mason Cooley

The telephone gives us the happiness of being together yet safely apart.

— Mason Cooley

Some eras worship infancy; some, the aged. None as yet has adored middle age.

— Mason Cooley

Only the broken-hearted know the truth about love.

— Mason Cooley

Money gives me more energy than all the Granola bars in the world.

— Mason Cooley

Belief forages, moving from pasture to pasture.

— Mason Cooley

Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Families in which nothing is ever discussed usually have a lot not to discuss.

— Mason Cooley

With age, comfort becomes more seductive than beauty.

— Mason Cooley

Creativity is not a substitute for competence.

— Mason Cooley

A sure cure for boredom: fast until you are ravenous.

— Mason Cooley

Worrying is as futile as boredom, but harder work.

— Mason Cooley

Many pains are imaginary, but all joys are real.

— Mason Cooley

I answered my father's demands for sympathy with silence.

— Mason Cooley

Old age: I fall asleep during the funerals of my friends.

— Mason Cooley

Go ahead and voice your criticisms, but don't expect to be invited back.

— Mason Cooley

Original sin reassures us that our slip was not the first.

— Mason Cooley

Passion impels our deeds; ideology supplies the explanations.

— Mason Cooley

My love grows wide and shallow in an effort to spread my losses.

— Mason Cooley

Sex and writing live on playful cruelties.

— Mason Cooley

The shades of respectability begin to close about the greying head.

— Mason Cooley

The past is always waiting to entangle and deflect us.

— Mason Cooley

What is Providence for you may be Nemesis for me.

— Mason Cooley

Middle-aged adolescents are a libel on the real thing.

— Mason Cooley

The higher the moral tone, the more suspect the speaker.

— Mason Cooley

To avoid doing anything, wait for the right circumstances.

— Mason Cooley

Love begins with an image; lust with a sensation.

— Mason Cooley

The aphorism wants to be at the same time both main line and off beat.

— Mason Cooley

The extravagance of intellect outstrips the extravagance of desire.

— Mason Cooley

Good books do not make people wiser or happier--only more conscious.

— Mason Cooley

Saying I feel guilty is a mere form of words. Saying I feel ashamed is not.

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

The real reality is always just around the corner.

— Mason Cooley

Money is to my social existence what health is to my body.

— Mason Cooley

The villain may be good looking, but his smile is never quite right.

— Mason Cooley

In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.

— Mason Cooley

The muse is blind as Cupid and skittish as Diana.

— Mason Cooley

By the time I have clarified a thought, I no longer want to think it.

— Mason Cooley