Quotes By Mason Cooley

If you call failures experiments, you can put them in your resume and claim them as achievements.

Journalism never admits that nothing much is happening.

While we are reading, we are all Don Quixote.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Many gloat over their own troubles.

Young poets bewail the passing of love; old poets, the passing of time. There is surprisingly little difference.

Fears and lies intensify consciousness.

Children use all their wiles to get their way with adults. Adults do the same with children.

Most reputations are not ruined but forgotten.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

In the street, the gaze of desire is furtive or menacing.

Taste refers to the past, imagination to the future.

A real idea keeps changing and appears in many places.

The gods are watching, but idly, yawning.

Reputation runs behind the current state of affairs.

Dancing and running shake up the chemistry of happiness.

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

Even boredom has its crises.

When I prayed for success, I forgot to ask for sound sleep and good digestion.

The sage belongs to the same obsolete repertory as the virtuous maiden and the enlightened monarch.

People who abhor solitude may abhor company almost as much.

In every death, a busy world comes to an end.

If we think about the obvious long enough, it dissolves.

Cats are inquisitive, but hate to admit it.

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

Mind and body obstruct one another's pleasures.

Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.

I did not know I was in my prime until afterwards.

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Observe decorum, and it will open a path to morality.