Mason Cooley Quotes
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201. “Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.”

— Mason Cooley

202. “Beggars beg to get money, not to reproach the passerby.”

— Mason Cooley

203. “Alone, lonely people talk to themselves. In company, they often continue.”

— Mason Cooley

204. “I am skeptical in principle, gullible in practice.”

— Mason Cooley

205. “Intelligence in isolation turns to aimless marauding.”

— Mason Cooley

206. “Radical historians now the tell the story of Thanksgiving from the point of view of the turkey.”

— Mason Cooley

207. “Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence.”

— Mason Cooley

208. “The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.”

— Mason Cooley

209. “Suspicion is the beginning of wisdom, and of madness.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

211. “Nudity is the costume of lovers and corpses.”

— Mason Cooley

212. “In a strange city, I connect through food and fantasy.”

— Mason Cooley

213. “Mild brown eyes beckon me to the past, but memory provides no clue.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

215. “Secrets die when kept or revealed. They live by being faintly and uncertainly repeated.”

— Mason Cooley

216. “Withhold admiration from a narcissist and be disliked. Give it and be treated with indifference.”

— Mason Cooley

217. “A quick smile is more seductive than a slinky dress.”

— Mason Cooley

218. “Plato’s Symposium shows that flirtation and philosophy can further one another.”

— Mason Cooley

219. “Pleasure usually comes when called, but not happiness.”

— Mason Cooley

220. “I feel disappointed, but I don’t remember just what I expected.”

— Mason Cooley

221. “Living alone is good for privacy, bad for full-scale cooking and moving heavy furniture.”

— Mason Cooley

222. “Mars and Venus are at it again. This time, Hephaestus is standing by with a private detective, a photographer, and a lawyer.”

— Mason Cooley

223. “If I can’t serve as a role model, let me serve as a warning.”

— Mason Cooley

224. “As I criss-cross the city hurrying, I feel always the unchanging cold beneath the pavement.”

— Mason Cooley

225. “Hope likes justification, but can do without.”

— Mason Cooley

226. “Fear of trying causes paralysis. Trying causes only trembling and sweating.”

— Mason Cooley

227. “Once discover comfort, and there is no turning back.”

— Mason Cooley

228. “Virtue sometimes pretends. Vice is always sincere.”

— Mason Cooley

229. “Swindlers are notoriously gullible.”

— Mason Cooley

230. “The mind scolds the heart, which makes excuses and goes its own way.”

— Mason Cooley

231. “Vice is a dreary business. And virtue is not a lot of fun, either.”

— Mason Cooley

232. “The bathroom scale knows nothing of extenuating circumstances.”

— Mason Cooley

233. “Methodology gives those with no ideas something to do.”

— Mason Cooley

234. “For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect.”

— Mason Cooley

235. “Between repetition and forgetting, it is a marvel that a new thought ever struggles into existence.”

— Mason Cooley

236. “Proverbial wisdom counsels against risk and change. But sitting ducks fare worst of all.”

— Mason Cooley

237. “Rhyme and meter force gaps in meaning so the muse can enter.”

— Mason Cooley

238. “I do not regret the folly of my youth, but the timidity.”

— Mason Cooley

239. “Facts do not give advice.”

— Mason Cooley

240. “We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.”

— Mason Cooley

241. “The lyric deals with love and sorrow, the aphorism with contradiction and deceit.”

— Mason Cooley

242. “Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.”

— Mason Cooley

243. “The self-righteous feel no need to be charming, and thus double their offensiveness.”

— Mason Cooley

244. “All anger feels like righteous anger; sorrow does not care whether it is righteous or not.”

— Mason Cooley

245. “Everyone makes sexy sounds; relatively few, sexy sights.”

— Mason Cooley

246. “Dancers dance through their pain I shrink from mine.”

— Mason Cooley

247. “To avoid taking responsibility, I become unresponsive but hang on until the other person leaves me.”

— Mason Cooley

248. “Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one’s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.”

— Mason Cooley

249. “To make advice agreeable, try paradox or rhyme.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley