Mason Cooley Quotes

Acknowledge your limitations or they will tyrannize over you.

When courtesy fails, be nasty, brutish, and short.

Not even self-love can always be counted on for support.

A beautiful woman peers out her window, as full of envy as the harridan who peers up at her from the street.

I am interested in a hundred things, but only slightly.

Curiosity is an asset mostly frittered away.

Curiosity engenders both science and scandal.

To win hearts, smile kindly on people's weaknesses.

Many have never felt strong, but everyone knows what it is to feel weak.

I deplore my shortcomings, but plan to keep them.

Weakness is a better teacher than strength. Weakness must learn to understand the obstacles that strength brushes aside.

Leisure unmasks our weaknesses.

Lies and promises are necessary but not sufficient.

Many who take up burdens come to resent being put upon.

The sun cares nothing for illumination.

The novelty we want is always close to the familiar.

Good manners protect the privileged, but leave the unprivileged more vulnerable.

Something is sticking out its tongue at me from the corner of my mirror.

Vulgarity is innocent; urbanity is not.

Holding unconventional opinions makes people feel they have strong characters.

I change my opinions often, but not my way of thinking.

Intellectuals have opinions on subjects they just heard about five minutes ago.

Methodology gives those with no ideas something to do.

When I get the point, I often don't know what to do with it.

Some subjects come up suddenly in our speech and cannot be silenced.

A dense undergrowth of extension cords sustains my upper world of lights, music, and machines of comfort.

Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.

Paradox implies that stating a contradiction disposes of it.

The rich are happier than we are, and should be.

The rich feel full of merit.

The neuroses parody the virtues.

A neurotic can neither enjoy his illusions nor give them up.

Boredom is the only sure cure for neurosis.

The banker rubs his nose, thinking of his cat stalking something on the lawn.

Addicts turn their pleasures into vengeful Gods.

A successful restaurant makes everything in it, including the patrons, seem a little better than they are.

Intuition is often mistaken, but not altogether.

I must like my profession, since I can hardly distinguish myself from it.

Publish in haste and repent at leisure.

In the museums, everything is in quotation marks.

The greater the privilege, the more hidden the arrogance. The Emperor of China need not exist.

Promiscuity: optimism, free enterprise, mobility--the American Dream.

Don Juan tries not to see the skeptical winks that greet his boasting.

It's no good being exclusive if nobody wants in.

The magic of procedure: do this after that and thus before so; then your wish will be granted.

Boredom turns to panic if my beloved leaves before the usual time.

Repetition comforts me for a time, then closes in.

My regimen is lust and avarice for exercise, gluttony and sloth for relaxation.

Diplomats lie with a heavy sense of destiny.

You gave me a significant look, but significant of what?