Mason Cooley Quotes

Nobody likes to offer stupidity as an excuse.

The novel avoids the sublime and seeks out the interesting.

Art seduces, but does not exploit.

Courage overrides self-doubt, but does not end it.

Carnal knowledge is as forgettable as the other kinds.

Modern literature seduces with insults, riddles, and inside stories.

Documents create a paper reality we call proof.

An omnipotent God is the only being with no reason to lie.

Events are called inevitable only after they have occurred.

Warning: fortune cookies don't care what happens to you.

If beggars do not hate the rest of us, they are even more abject than I had imagined.

Complainers detest each other.

Logic and fact keep interfering with the easy flow of conversation.

Inequality is a fact. Equality is a value.

Comedy is hostile to profundity, and brings everything to the surface.

My mind is led astray by every faint rustle.

Every parent can imagine the joys of child abuse.

I am open-minded on all questions I care nothing about.

Dignity takes alarm at the unexpected sound of laughter.

Self-congratulation pleases only the speaker.

Babies and the old are permitted self-absorption. In between, it provokes resentment.

The same old thing--even if it's champagne--is still the same old thing.

Elegance thrives on exclusion.

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

Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country.

Profundity often goes past the issue to some deep but useless truth.

Sensuality takes planning and work.

Procrastination and impatience form a system of checks and balances.

The dignified catastrophes of tragedy bear little resemblance to the slow ruin inflicted by life.

Many think that assigning blame settles matters.

What's the good of being stoical if nobody notices?

Sacred texts always offend reason.

The older we become, the more certain our future.

Reason is sight. Instinct is touch. Intuition is smell.

Reason cannot break out of its own loop.

You are so tactful that I have no idea what you want.

Grandiosity lessens as work proceeds.

Methodology is applied ideology.

Consensus is usually made possible by vague language and shallow commitments.

Laughter scares off lust.

Robert Frost: plain, strong, simple, and mean.

Self-conscious? Try a wig, a corset, a veil, a beard. Or cultivate shamelessness.

Anxiety and lust are evicting the older passions.

Arrogance rides triumphantly through the gates, barely glancing at the old woman about to cut the rope and spring shut the trap.

Reason argues the case, but fact may determine the judgment.

To Jane Austen, every fool is a treasure trove.

Paradox likes contradictions with exits.

A sense of righteousness is even more dangerous than a violent temper.

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

Saying "I feel guilty" is a mere form of words. Saying "I feel ashamed" is not.