Top 1384 Quotes & Sayings by Mason Cooley - Page 3

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Mason Cooley.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
In psychoanalysis, only the fee is exactly what it seems to be.
The shades of respectability begin to close about the greying head.
Writers mean more than they say and say more than they mean. — © Mason Cooley
Writers mean more than they say and say more than they mean.
Taste refers to the past, imagination to the future.
Romantics consider common sense vulgar.
Young men preen. Old men scheme.
Three meals plus bedtime make four sure blessings a day.
Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted.
Seeing my malevolent face in the mirror, my benevolent soul shrinks back.
Fulfillment is often more trouble than it is worth.
Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.
Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.
First literature came to refer only to itself, the literary theory. — © Mason Cooley
First literature came to refer only to itself, the literary theory.
Hatred of the mother is familiar, but the mother's hatred still comes as a surprise.
Children now expect their parents to audition for approval.
If beggars do not hate the rest of us, they are even more abject than I had imagined.
Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.
As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.
To understand a literary style, consider what it omits.
Friends are sometimes boring, but enemies never.
My thought has been shaped by books; my desires by pictures.
Imagination has rules, but we can only guess what they are.
General statements omit what we really want to know. Example: some horses run faster than others.
Hypocrisy is the outside of cynicism.
In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words.
Never ask a bore a question.
If we think about the obvious long enough, it dissolves.
If I play hard to get, soon the phone stops ringing altogether.
Without civilization, we would not turn into animals, but vegetables.
Critic's delight: scolding the Mighty Dead.
If you are going to break a Law of Art, make the crime interesting.
Language is the friendliest of the things from which we cannot escape.
Staid middle age loves the hurricane passions of opera.
While we are reading, we are all Don Quixote.
Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.
Philosophy likes to keen common sense on the run.
A real idea keeps changing and appears in many places.
My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet. — © Mason Cooley
My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.
Listening to people keeps them entertained.
Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is.
An omnipotent God is the only being with no reason to lie.
In the street, the gaze of desire is furtive or menacing.
Most reputations are not ruined but forgotten.
Many gloat over their own troubles.
The body has a mind of its own.
The passion for money is never fickle.
Logic teaches rules for presentation, not thinking.
Who would not give up wit for power and beauty? — © Mason Cooley
Who would not give up wit for power and beauty?
After an argument, silence may mean acceptance or the continuation of resistance by other means.
The aim of literary ambition is to demonstrate one's greatness of soul.
Hatred observes with more care than love does.
Few artists can afford artistic temperament.
The novel avoids the sublime and seeks out the interesting.
To confer dignity, forgive. To express contempt, forget.
Most people regard getting their way as a matter of simple justice.
The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind.
A blunt statement can be as false as any other.
City people make most of the fuss about the charms of country life.
Mind and body obstruct one another's pleasures.
Children use all their wiles to get their way with adults. Adults do the same with children.
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