Top 500 Mason Cooley Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”

— Mason Cooley

Featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Short Inspiring Quotes

2. “Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.”

— Mason Cooley

Featured in: Short Quotes, Effort Quotes, Productivity Quotes, Procrastination Quotes

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

— Mason Cooley

Featured in: Awakening Quotes, New Beginnings Quotes, Feel Better Quotes, Good Morning Quotes, Depression Quotes

4. “Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.”

— Mason Cooley

5. “The time I kill is killing me.”

— Mason Cooley

Featured in: Depression Quotes, Boredom Quotes

6. “Why not – is a slogan for an interesting life.”

— Mason Cooley

7. “Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.”

— Mason Cooley

8. “Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.”

— Mason Cooley

9. “The self-righteous rule out the possibility that they are what has gone wrong.”

— Mason Cooley

10. “The tragic hero prefers death to prudence. The comedian prefers playing tricks to winning. Only the villain really plays to win.”

— Mason Cooley

11. “The philosophy of hedonism means little to lovers of pleasure. They have no inclination to read philosophy, or to write it.”

— Mason Cooley

12. “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen: even less, the trouble I’ve successfully avoided.”

— Mason Cooley

13. “Self-pity makes people callous.”

— Mason Cooley

14. “Position yourself well enough, and circumstances will do the rest.”

— Mason Cooley

15. “Every time I change the way I explain myself to myself, I have to rearrange the story of my life.”

— Mason Cooley

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

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

— Mason Cooley

17. “An event is not over until everyone is tired of talking about it.”

— Mason Cooley

18. “The world needs an enema.”

— Mason Cooley

19. “While we are reading, we are all Don Quixote.”

— Mason Cooley

Featured in: Reading Quotes

20. “King Kong, Count Dracula, and the Phantom of the Opera are just looking for love, like the rest of us.”

— Mason Cooley

21. “Cure for an obsession: get another one.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

23. “My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”

— Mason Cooley

24. “Inequality is a fact. Equality is a value.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

26. “My strengths make me contemptuous. My weaknesses make me charitable.”

— Mason Cooley

27. “The closeups of pornography make human genitals look like undiscovered prehistoric animals.”

— Mason Cooley

28. “Methodology is applied ideology.”

— Mason Cooley

29. “Heroes are born to be troublemakers.”

— Mason Cooley

30. “Without a little negligence, life would be intolerable.”

— Mason Cooley

31. “The wisdom of age: don’t stop walking.”

— Mason Cooley

32. “Symbolism erects a facade of respectability to hide the indecency of dreams.”

— Mason Cooley

33. “Lack of reciprocity ruins friendships, but makes love affairs exciting for a time.”

— Mason Cooley

34. “Documents create a paper reality we call proof.”

— Mason Cooley

35. “A blocked path also offers guidance.”

— Mason Cooley

36. “Self-congratulation pleases only the speaker.”

— Mason Cooley

37. “Death is just around the corner. If only it would stay there.”

— Mason Cooley

38. “The novelty we want is always close to the familiar.”

— Mason Cooley

39. “Logic teaches rules for presentation, not thinking.”

— Mason Cooley

40. “Failure makes us envious. Success makes us greedy.”

— Mason Cooley

41. “Always clamping down on excitement is not self-control but fear.”

— Mason Cooley

Featured in: Self Control Quotes

42. “I love you is the inscription on Pandora’s box.”

— Mason Cooley

43. “Melancholy is as seductive as Ecstasy.”

— Mason Cooley

44. “The critical spirit never knows when to stop meddling.”

— Mason Cooley

45. “Reason cannot break out of its own loop.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

47. “Poor but happy is not a phrase invented by a poor person.”

— Mason Cooley

48. “Every farewell combines loss and new freedom.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

Featured in: Reading Quotes

50. “Wisdom remembers. Happiness forgets.”

— Mason Cooley