Mason Cooley Quotes
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101. “An insult angers me. Being ignored crushes me.”

— Mason Cooley

102. “What is Providence for you may be Nemesis for me.”

— Mason Cooley

103. “I tried self-sacrifice a couple of times in my youth.”

— Mason Cooley

104. “Envy grieves. Jealousy rages.”

— Mason Cooley

105. “Boredom is the only sure cure for neurosis.”

— Mason Cooley

106. “If you corner me, you are going to hear some unwelcome truths.”

— Mason Cooley

107. “Self-sacrifice usually contains an unspoken demand for payment.”

— Mason Cooley

108. “No dignity without distance.”

— Mason Cooley

109. “Your flattery is as full of contempt as your insults were.”

— Mason Cooley

110. “Critic’s delight: scolding the Mighty Dead.”

— Mason Cooley

111. “The shades of respectability begin to close about the greying head.”

— Mason Cooley

112. “Hatred of the mother is familiar, but the mother’s hatred still comes as a surprise.”

— Mason Cooley

113. “We are more tied to our faults than to our virtues.”

— Mason Cooley

114. “Reason is sight. Instinct is touch. Intuition is smell.”

— Mason Cooley

115. “Journalism never admits that nothing much is happening.”

— Mason Cooley

116. “Young men preen. Old men scheme.”

— Mason Cooley

117. “Consciousness is our only reprieve from Time.”

— Mason Cooley

118. “Conscience is the moralized form of self-absorption.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

120. “Austerity causes constipation; excess, diarrhea.”

— Mason Cooley

121. “Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty-the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

124. “Money comes to life as it is spent.”

— Mason Cooley

125. “A work of art is an echo chamber which repeats what people say about it.”

— Mason Cooley

126. “I have learned to keep to myself how exceptional I am.”

— Mason Cooley

127. “Don’t tell me it’s raining when you’re peeing on me!”

— Mason Cooley

128. “Let’s have some good, old-fashioned literature, with a virgin and a moral.”

— Mason Cooley

129. “Studying the past may suggest new ways of going wrong.”

— Mason Cooley

130. “Taste refers to the past, imagination to the future.”

— Mason Cooley

131. “Sexual boredom is ousting sexual deviance as the problem.”

— Mason Cooley

132. “In the museums, everything is in quotation marks.”

— Mason Cooley

133. “Sometimes I discover I have changed my mind because I have forgotten what I used to think.”

— Mason Cooley

134. “Leisure unmasks our weaknesses.”

— Mason Cooley

135. “Fastidious taste makes enjoyment a struggle.”

— Mason Cooley

136. “A fastidious taste is best indoors, away from nature and the city.”

— Mason Cooley

137. “Fruitless striving breeds less despair than inaction.”

— Mason Cooley

138. “If success is a habit, it is a hard one to acquire.”

— Mason Cooley

139. “The powerless worship Luck and Fate.”

— Mason Cooley

140. “Sign at the orgy: BODIES ONLY.”

— Mason Cooley

141. “I gulp down my pleasures, chew over my miseries.”

— Mason Cooley

142. “Nostalgia keeps dissolving the ironic narratives in which I have contained my past.”

— Mason Cooley

143. “Dutch painting: daily life is enough.”

— Mason Cooley

144. “Bravery despite defeat is praiseworthy. Victory despite cowardice is beyond praise.”

— Mason Cooley

145. “Aphorisms know the angles, but not the structure.”

— Mason Cooley

146. “If you should ever acknowledge my existence, I plan to snub you.”

— Mason Cooley

147. “The beloved is the ultimate fetish.”

— Mason Cooley

148. “In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything.”

— Mason Cooley

149. “Living too long exacts a painful price.”

— Mason Cooley

150. “Old age likes indecency. It’s a sign of life.”

— Mason Cooley