Quotes By Mason Cooley

Middle age went by while I was mourning for my lost youth.

I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.

Amazing that the human race has taken enough time out from thinking about food or sex to create the arts and sciences.

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

Most people regard getting their way as a matter of simple justice.

My mind is led astray by every faint rustle.

Talk about yourself as much as you like, but do not expect others to listen.

The novel avoids the sublime and seeks out the interesting.

Fantasy mirrors desire. Imagination reshapes it.

Documents create a paper reality we call proof.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.

Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.

Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.

To confer dignity, forgive. To express contempt, forget.

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

Kafka: cries of helplessness in twenty powerful volumes.

Logic teaches rules for presentation, not thinking.

Even cats grow lonely and anxious.

What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance.

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

Fulfillment is often more trouble than it is worth.

A great reader seldom recognizes his solitude.

Death is frightening, and so is Eternal Life.

Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.

It is possible to interpret without observing, but not to observe without interpreting.

The passions are the same in every conflict, large or small.

People believe that photographs are true and therefore cannot be art.

The discontented believe that their regrets are about the past.

The passion for money is never fickle.