Mason Cooley Quotes

Self-blame usually has an undertone of self-congratulation.

The etiquette of romantic love is as elaborate as that surrounding the Emperor of China.

Middle age went by while I was mourning for my lost youth.

Being cultured is the least expensive form of respectability.

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

The past goes right on pulling me apart, though I can scarcely remember the people or the issues.

Most of us live in a world that has ceased to exist.

A crisis unmasks everyone.

Children consider disliking their parents natural, but if the dislike is returned, they are outraged.

Children would die of terror if they knew the folly and ignorance of their caretakers.

Liberal Doctrine: it is not children who misbehave, but parents.

Children must be protected not because they are innocent but because they are powerless.

Necessity makes heroes of us all.

Neat trick: to be roused to ambition and reconciled to one's mediocrity at the same time.

The New York action painters want their pictures to jump off the walls and chase you down the street.

The Enlightenment needs more shadow; the Romantic Movement less.

Wit saves us from being swallowed whole by life.

True wit has a grave intention.

In comedy, the witty style wins out over every mishap of the plot.

If folly disappeared, wit would starve.

Sometimes "Yes" is rhetoric enough.

Like love, destruction can be ecstatic.

God makes the covenant, and observes it as He pleases.

I resist change even as I call for it.

People invent gods to explain their suffering.

The young are amazed when they suffer.

Suffering teaches us only that we suffer. Joy shows us which way to go.

Memories contain hidden editorials on current events.

Too timid to talk back, I shot my adversary.

Fear regulates. Appetite impels.

If "there is no harm in asking," why guilt and fear when we do so?

Boredom and fear keep us working and obeying the laws.

After desolation, grief brings back our humanity.

Like love, grief fades in and out.

Rage against the world, if you like, but quietly, or the Guardians will awake.

I know that I am very much like everybody else, but not really.

As a dream comes true, it falls flat.

Dreams surround our desires with ugliness and dread.

To love a fool is a misfortune, but does not make one a fool.

The educated can listen impassively to almost anything.

My young friend supposes his ingenuousness is merely a ruse.

The trouble with the young people today is that it is they who are young.

The young have stolen our youthfulness, and flaunt it without shame.

Age must give way to youth, no doubt. But not yet, not yet.

A well-paid occupation is seldom spoken of as "rewarding.

The soul is no longer honored as it once was, but it still keeps appetite from being the measure of all things.

Self-criticism expands the opportunities for discourse and eliminates the need for an adversary.

I dream of vague shapes that hint of my heart's desire.

Yearning wants mostly to perpetuate itself.

Rebuttals never alter desire.