Quotes By Mason Cooley

Humor does not rescue us from unhappiness, but enables us to move back from it a little.

Never ask a bore a question.

If modesty disappeared, so would exhibitionism.

Living alone makes it harder to find someone to blame.

As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.

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

A happy arrangement: many people prefer cats to other people, and many cats prefer people to other cats.

Some loves are like a vice that has ceased to give pleasure.

If you are going to break a Law of Art, make the crime interesting.

Listening to people keeps them entertained.

Sincerity: willingness to spend one's own money.

Expensive advertising courts us with hints and images. The ordinary kind merely says, Buy.

Hypocrisy is the outside of cynicism.

Hatred observes with more care than love does.

An academic dialect is perfected when its terms are hard to understand and refer only to one another.

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

Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.

While there's life, there's fear.

Philosophy likes to keen common sense on the run.

After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.

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

Rereading, we find a new book.

Innocence: I am only stepping on your face because it lies in my path.

The man in the street is always a stranger.

Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted.

There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.

Well-behaved: he always speaks as if his mother might be listening.

Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.

Three meals plus bedtime make four sure blessings a day.

Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.