Mason Cooley
Unconditional love is a lofty ideal, but unconditional hate is a fact well documented by history.Collection: Love
Photography knows how to authenticate its misrepresentations.Collection: Photography
We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.Collection: Literature
Every book teaches a lesson, even if the lesson is only that one has chosen the wrong book.Collection: Book
Moderation in all things is best, but it's pretty hard to get excited about it.Collection: Excited
The great advantage of a new friend is that we have not yet found one another out.Collection: Friendship
Virtue sometimes pretends. Vice is always sincere.Collection: Vices
With age, I have become both more pious and more shameless.Collection: Age
Holding unconventional opinions makes people feel they have strong characters.Collection: Strong
I change my opinions often, but not my way of thinking.Collection: Thinking
Intellectuals have opinions on subjects they just heard about five minutes ago.Collection: Opinion
Methodology gives those with no ideas something to do.Collection: Ideas
Getting ready: the show girl scratches her breast and shakes out her feathers.Collection: Girl
When I get the point, I often don't know what to do with it.Collection: Comprehension
Sleaze is a point by point refutation of elegance.Collection: Elegance
Great talkers do not stop for breath, and never look at the clock.Collection: Talking
Some subjects come up suddenly in our speech and cannot be silenced.Collection: Talking
A dense undergrowth of extension cords sustains my upper world of lights, music, and machines of comfort.Collection: Light
Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.Collection: Jargon
Never lie in writing.Collection: Lying
Pornography does not inspire violence, but you can break a leg trying to imitate it.Collection: Break A Leg
The dignified catastrophes of tragedy bear little resemblance to the slow ruin inflicted by life.Collection: Drama
Addicts turn their pleasures into vengeful Gods.Collection: Addiction
A successful restaurant makes everything in it, including the patrons, seem a little better than they are.Collection: Successful
A restaurant with candles and flowers evokes more reveries than the Isle of Bali does.Collection: Flower
Self-righteous victims invite extra nails.Collection: Self
Self-hatred is sometimes appropriate.Collection: Self
Procrastination and impatience form a system of checks and balances.Collection: Procrastination
Intuition is often mistaken, but not altogether.Collection: Intuition
I am too impatient to wait for temptation to come to me.Collection: Waiting
Either offer me something I really like, or stop trying to tempt me.Collection: Temptation
I must like my profession, since I can hardly distinguish myself from it.Collection: Profession
Publish in haste and repent at leisure.Collection: Haste
Desire is wakeful; satisfaction dozes.Collection: Desire
My intentions go one way, my desires another. Thus I feel both self-indulgent and deprived.Collection: Self
Sexual attraction keeps throwing self-interest off course.Collection: Self
Seek and Hide: the Lover gazes at the Beloved. The Beloved looks away. The Beloved turns and looks at the Lover. The Lover runs away.Collection: Running
Habit keeps my life going, with occasional pushes from desire.Collection: Desire
The cow's point of view deserves more literary attention.Collection: Deserve More
Treat unhappiness as a defect and fewer would embrace it.Collection: Unhappiness
Children enjoy inflicting pain until unhappiness teaches them tenderness.Collection: Children
The unhappy are prisoners of a single round of thought.Collection: Unhappy
I wish you joy of your unhappiness, since you cling to it so.Collection: Joy
New York loves itself in an unkind and fanatical way.Collection: New York
Why is it forbidden in New York to acknowledge the charm and beauty of Los Angeles?Collection: New York
In New York, one must collapse to be indolent.Collection: New York
I create my social existence by earning and spending.Collection: Self
Self-satisfaction and self-pity are both condemned. What are people permitted to feel about themselves?Collection: Self
Self-realization sounds good. But what if only an enraged dwarf emerges?Collection: Dwarves