Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.
— Mason Cooley
Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage.
— Mason Cooley
Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.
— Mason Cooley
Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.
— Mason Cooley
Ideology has shaped the very sofa on which I sit.
— Mason Cooley
Love begins with an image; lust with a sensation.
— Mason Cooley
Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.
— Mason Cooley
Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence.
— Mason Cooley
Living alone makes it harder to find someone to blame.
— Mason Cooley
Cure for an obsession: get another one.
— Mason Cooley
Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.
— Mason Cooley
The lonely become either thoughtful or empty.
— Mason Cooley
Romance is tempestuous. Love is calm.
— Mason Cooley
Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.
— Mason Cooley
If you call failures experiments, you can put them in your resume and claim them as achievements.
— Mason Cooley
‘Be faithful to your roots’ is the liberal version of ‘Stay in your ghetto.’
— Mason Cooley
Melancholy is as seductive as Ecstasy.
— Mason Cooley
Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.
— Mason Cooley
Travelers never think that they are the foreigners.
— Mason Cooley
Money: power at its most liquid.
— Mason Cooley
In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.
— Mason Cooley
Only the broken-hearted know the truth about love.
— Mason Cooley
Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying.
— Mason Cooley
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has more threat than comfort.
— Mason Cooley
Three meals plus bedtime make four sure blessings a day.
— Mason Cooley
What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance.
— Mason Cooley
Observe decorum, and it will open a path to morality.
— Mason Cooley
Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?
— Mason Cooley
Money is to my social existence what health is to my body.
— Mason Cooley
The shades of respectability begin to close about the greying head.
— Mason Cooley
A happy arrangement: many people prefer cats to other people, and many cats prefer people to other cats.
— Mason Cooley
My mind is led astray by every faint rustle.
— Mason Cooley
In the street, the gaze of desire is furtive or menacing.
— Mason Cooley
Promiscuity is like never reading past the first page. Monogamy is like reading the same book over and over.
— Mason Cooley
Logic and fact keep interfering with the easy flow of conversation.
— Mason Cooley
Fantasy mirrors desire. Imagination reshapes it.
— Mason Cooley
Women encourage men to be childish, then scold them.
— Mason Cooley
The beloved is the ultimate fetish.
— Mason Cooley
Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.
— Mason Cooley
We are more tied to our faults than to our virtues.
— Mason Cooley
If modesty disappeared, so would exhibitionism.
— Mason Cooley
The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.
— Mason Cooley
A sense of blessedness comes from a change of heart, not from more blessings.
— Mason Cooley
Good parties create a temporary youthfulness.
— Mason Cooley
To confer dignity, forgive. To express contempt, forget.
— Mason Cooley
Even the most fickle are faithful to a few bad habits.
— Mason Cooley
The man of sensibility is too busy talking about his feelings to have time for good deeds.
— Mason Cooley
Eternity eludes us, even as a thought.
— Mason Cooley
Magic trick: to make people disappear, ask them to fulfill their promises.
— Mason Cooley
An omnipotent God is the only being with no reason to lie.
— Mason Cooley
The gods are watching, but idly, yawning.
— Mason Cooley
The man in the street is always a stranger.
— Mason Cooley
Why do we never expect dull people to be rascals?
— Mason Cooley
As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.
— Mason Cooley
If the world would apologize, I might consider a reconciliation.
— Mason Cooley
Lying just for the fun of it is either art or pathology.
— Mason Cooley
Dancing and running shake up the chemistry of happiness.
— Mason Cooley
When a man bores a woman, she complains. When a woman bores a man, he ignores her.
— Mason Cooley
Sloth, not ill-will, makes me unjust.
— Mason Cooley
The ravaged face in the mirror hides the enchanting youth that is the real me.
— Mason Cooley
I know that I am what I am. But I am not sure what I am.
— Mason Cooley
Ultimately, blind faith is the only kind.
— Mason Cooley
The beginning of self-knowledge: recognizing that your motives are the same as other people’s.
— Mason Cooley
Consciousness is our only reprieve from Time.
— Mason Cooley
The power of lying is much less than the power of what is not to be discussed.
— Mason Cooley
The wisdom of age: don’t stop walking.
— Mason Cooley
I love you is the inscription on Pandora’s box.
— Mason Cooley
The discontented believe that their regrets are about the past.
— Mason Cooley
No chaos, no creation. Evidence: the kitchen at mealtime.
— Mason Cooley
City people make most of the fuss about the charms of country life.
— Mason Cooley
If we think about the obvious long enough, it dissolves.
— Mason Cooley
Middle age went by while I was mourning for my lost youth.
— Mason Cooley
Never try to leap from a standstill.
— Mason Cooley
Language is the friendliest of the things from which we cannot escape.
— Mason Cooley
Think carefully before asking for justice. Mercy might be safer.
— Mason Cooley
The passion for money is never fickle.
— Mason Cooley
Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is.
— Mason Cooley
Forgiveness is like faith. You have to keep reviving it.
— Mason Cooley
Amazing that the human race has taken enough time out from thinking about food or sex to create the arts and sciences.
— Mason Cooley
Families in which nothing is ever discussed usually have a lot not to discuss.
— Mason Cooley
Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.
— Mason Cooley
The higher the moral tone, the more suspect the speaker.
— Mason Cooley
While we are reading, we are all Don Quixote.
— Mason Cooley
When I prayed for success, I forgot to ask for sound sleep and good digestion.
— Mason Cooley
If you are going to break a Law of Art, make the crime interesting.
— Mason Cooley
Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.
— Mason Cooley
While there’s life, there’s fear.
— Mason Cooley
My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.
— Mason Cooley
Expensive advertising courts us with hints and images. The ordinary kind merely says, Buy.
— Mason Cooley
If I play hard to get, soon the phone stops ringing altogether.
— Mason Cooley
For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect.
— Mason Cooley
Few friendships could survive the moodiness of love affairs.
— Mason Cooley
The sage belongs to the same obsolete repertory as the virtuous maiden and the enlightened monarch.
— Mason Cooley
In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words.
— Mason Cooley
Mind and body obstruct one another’s pleasures.
— Mason Cooley
My thought has been shaped by books; my desires by pictures.
— Mason Cooley
Seeing my malevolent face in the mirror, my benevolent soul shrinks back.
— Mason Cooley
Cats are inquisitive, but hate to admit it.
— Mason Cooley
Who would not give up wit for power and beauty?
— Mason Cooley
Sincerity: willingness to spend one’s own money.
— Mason Cooley
Stated clearly enough, an idea may cancel itself out.
— Mason Cooley
Taste refers to the past, imagination to the future.
— Mason Cooley
Reputation runs behind the current state of affairs.
— Mason Cooley
Worried about being a dull fellow? You might develop your talent for being irritating.
— Mason Cooley
Without civilization, we would not turn into animals, but vegetables.
— Mason Cooley
Self-reform is the only kind that works.
— Mason Cooley
Young men preen. Old men scheme.
— Mason Cooley
Philosophy likes to keen common sense on the run.
— Mason Cooley
The aim of literary ambition is to demonstrate one’s greatness of soul.
— Mason Cooley
Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.
— Mason Cooley
The body has a mind of its own.
— Mason Cooley
Conscious thought is the tidying up at the end.
— Mason Cooley
Journalism never admits that nothing much is happening.
— Mason Cooley
Many gloat over their own troubles.
— Mason Cooley
Logic teaches rules for presentation, not thinking.
— Mason Cooley
Minds will wander even during the Last Judgment.
— Mason Cooley
Children use all their wiles to get their way with adults. Adults do the same with children.
— Mason Cooley
Mistakes are the only universal form of originality.
— Mason Cooley
To understand someone, find out how he spends his money.
— Mason Cooley
Most reputations are not ruined but forgotten.
— Mason Cooley
The only peace is being out of earshot.
— Mason Cooley
Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.
— Mason Cooley
An academic dialect is perfected when its terms are hard to understand and refer only to one another.
— Mason Cooley
In every death, a busy world comes to an end.
— Mason Cooley
Often, when I want to consult my impulses, I cannot find them.
— Mason Cooley
People who abhor solitude may abhor company almost as much.
— Mason Cooley
Fail, and your friends feel superior. Succeed, and they feel resentful.
— Mason Cooley
Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.
— Mason Cooley
Thinking about the universe has now been handed over to specialists. The rest of us merely read about it.
— Mason Cooley
If beggars do not hate the rest of us, they are even more abject than I had imagined.
— Mason Cooley
I have learned to keep to myself how exceptional I am.
— Mason Cooley
Young poets bewail the passing of love; old poets, the passing of time. There is surprisingly little difference.
— Mason Cooley
My parents wanted me to solace them for sorrows they denied having had.
— Mason Cooley
Fulfillment is often more trouble than it is worth.
— Mason Cooley
Kindness eases everything almost as much as money does.
— Mason Cooley
Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.
— Mason Cooley
Old and young disbelieve one another’s truths.
— Mason Cooley
Old age: I fall asleep during the funerals of my friends.
— Mason Cooley
After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.
— Mason Cooley
Death is frightening, and so is Eternal Life.
— Mason Cooley
Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.
— Mason Cooley
Few artists can afford artistic temperament.
— Mason Cooley
Writers mean more than they say and say more than they mean.
— Mason Cooley
Hatred observes with more care than love does.
— Mason Cooley
Unlike the actual, the fictional explains itself.
— Mason Cooley
Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.
— Mason Cooley
After an argument, silence may mean acceptance or the continuation of resistance by other means.
— Mason Cooley
First literature came to refer only to itself, the literary theory.
— Mason Cooley
Listening to people keeps them entertained.
— Mason Cooley
Rereading, we find a new book.
— Mason Cooley
Cruelty is softened by fear, not pity.
— Mason Cooley
To understand a literary style, consider what it omits.
— Mason Cooley
Hatred of the mother is familiar, but the mother’s hatred still comes as a surprise.
— Mason Cooley
When sages commend excess, Desire is sick.
— Mason Cooley
Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted.
— Mason Cooley
The passions are the same in every conflict, large or small.
— Mason Cooley
Even boredom has its crises.
— Mason Cooley
If success is a habit, it is a hard one to acquire.
— Mason Cooley
Rescue someone unwilling to look after himself, and he will cling to you like a dangerous illness.
— Mason Cooley
People believe that photographs are true and therefore cannot be art.
— Mason Cooley
Kafka: cries of helplessness in twenty powerful volumes.
— Mason Cooley
Some loves are like a vice that has ceased to give pleasure.
— Mason Cooley
To be successful be ahead of your time, but only a little.
— Mason Cooley
Opportunity knocks, but doesn’t always answer to its name.
— Mason Cooley
Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.
— Mason Cooley
A real idea keeps changing and appears in many places.
— Mason Cooley
The horse stares at its captor, barely remembering the free kicks of youth.
— Mason Cooley
A great reader seldom recognizes his solitude.
— Mason Cooley
Friends are sometimes boring, but enemies never.
— Mason Cooley
Hypocrisy is the outside of cynicism.
— Mason Cooley
Don’t stare into a mirror when you are trying to solve a problem.
— Mason Cooley
Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.
— Mason Cooley
Imagination has rules, but we can only guess what they are.
— Mason Cooley
At sixty, I know little more about wisdom than I did at thirty, but I know a great deal more about folly.
— Mason Cooley
There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.
— Mason Cooley
Art seduces, but does not exploit.
— Mason Cooley
Most people regard getting their way as a matter of simple justice.
— Mason Cooley
I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.
— Mason Cooley
I’m being treated like a sex object, cried the lady. No matter. I will take care of it, said Time soothingly.
— Mason Cooley
Events are called inevitable only after they have occurred.
— Mason Cooley
Poor but happy is not a phrase invented by a poor person.
— Mason Cooley
Malice is always authentic and sincere.
— Mason Cooley
A blocked path also offers guidance.
— Mason Cooley
Even cats grow lonely and anxious.
— Mason Cooley
A blunt statement can be as false as any other.
— Mason Cooley
Children now expect their parents to audition for approval.
— Mason Cooley
Critic’s delight: scolding the Mighty Dead.
— Mason Cooley
Romantics consider common sense vulgar.
— Mason Cooley
Affection reproaches, but does not denounce.
— Mason Cooley
Folly always knows the answer.
— Mason Cooley
Well-behaved: he always speaks as if his mother might be listening.
— Mason Cooley
The real secrets are not the ones I tell.
— Mason Cooley
In psychoanalysis, only the fee is exactly what it seems to be.
— Mason Cooley
I did not know I was in my prime until afterwards.
— Mason Cooley
Fastidious taste makes enjoyment a struggle.
— Mason Cooley
The novel avoids the sublime and seeks out the interesting.
— Mason Cooley
Humor does not rescue us from unhappiness, but enables us to move back from it a little.
— Mason Cooley
Fears and lies intensify consciousness.
— Mason Cooley
The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind.
— Mason Cooley
General statements omit what we really want to know. Example: some horses run faster than others.
— Mason Cooley
It is possible to interpret without observing, but not to observe without interpreting.
— Mason Cooley
Talk about yourself as much as you like, but do not expect others to listen.
— Mason Cooley
I see what you mean, but I do not think what you think.
— Mason Cooley
Innocence: I am only stepping on your face because it lies in my path.
— Mason Cooley
Staid middle age loves the hurricane passions of opera.
— Mason Cooley
Other people’s beliefs may be myths, but not mine.
— Mason Cooley
In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.
— Mason Cooley
Never ask a bore a question.
— Mason Cooley
The time I kill is killing me.
— Mason Cooley
Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.
— Mason Cooley
Documents create a paper reality we call proof.
— Mason Cooley
Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.
— Mason Cooley
