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A Budget Takes The Fun Out Of Money.

-Mason Cooley

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A Budget Takes The

Mason Cooley

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A Budget Takes The Fun Out Of Money.

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Pedagogical Romances Leave The Mentor Disgruntled, The Pupil Confused.

We Are More Tied To Our Faults Than To Our Virtues.

The Nonsense That Charms Is Close To Sense.

My Neglected Duties Crowd Around Me In My Dreams, Murmuring.

The Rich Feel Full Of Merit.

Studying The Past May Suggest New Ways Of Going Wrong.

While There's Life, There's Fear.

To Jane Austen, Every Fool Is A Treasure Trove.

Winning Means Outlasting Everyone Else.

Intelligence In Isolation Turns To Aimless Marauding.

Beauty Compels Us; Reason Merely Cajoles.

Cruelty Is Softened By Fear, Not Pity.

It's No Good Being Exclusive If Nobody Wants In.

We Take Refuge In Illness And Then Are Trapped There.

Ironic And Jittery, We Are Puzzled By The Old Heroes With Their Fighting, Boasting, And Cocksure Lovemaking.

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Sexual Attraction Pairs People, But Does Not Match Them.

Modernism: The Books Are As Hard To Understand As Life Itself.

Many Count On Their Disadvantages To Cover For Them.

The Privacy Of Reading Frees Us To Entertain The Alien.

Courage Overrides Self-doubt, But Does Not End It.

God Improvises. Man Systematizes.

Age: I Go Slower As Time Goes Faster.

In The Labyrinth Of A Difficult Text, We Find Unmarked Forks In The Path, Detours, Blind Alleys, Loops That Deliver Us Back To Our Point Of Entry, And Finally The Monster Who Whispers An Unintelligible Truth In Our Ears.

The New Right: Kiss The Bankers And Spank The Babies.

Sexual Boredom Is Ousting Sexual Deviance As The Problem.

In New York, Pretending To Be Above The Struggle Means No Seat On The Bus And A Table Next To The Kitchen.

Avant-garde Art Jousts With Propriety, But Takes Care Never To Unseat It.

Some Live In A State Of Passionate Indecision.

Worried About Being A Dull Fellow? You Might Develop Your Talent For Being Irritating.

Those Who Follow Where Their Genitals Lead Them Often Wind Up In Tedious Company.

Like Love, Grief Fades In And Out.

What I Eat Turns Into My Body. What I Read Turns Into My Mind.

Some Marriages Depend On Domestic Arguments The Way The Courts Depend On Litigation.

Drugs Bring Us To To The Gates Of Paradise, Then Keep Us From Entering.

Change Often Makes Accepted Customs Into Crimes.

Perhaps Fortunately, No One Has Ever Found Out What It Would Be Like To Have All His Wishes Fulfilled.

Joy Goes As Deep As Sorrow, But Leaves Less Of Itself Behind.

Until I Am Ready To Lose Weight, I Cannot See How Fat I Am.

Don't Sacrifice Yourself For Me. I Will Not Be Grateful.

Astrology: Do We Make A Hullabaloo Among The Stars, Or Do They Make A Hullabaloo Down Here?

An Academic Dialect Is Perfected When Its Terms Are Hard To Understand And Refer Only To One Another.

Stutters And Snorts Are Meaningful But Not Usually Referential.

An Illicit Love Affair Seems Sweetly Old-fashioned In The Age Of One Night Stands And Orgies.

A Quiet Well-behaved Boy Is Likely To Be Both Frightened And Ambitious.

The Psychiatrist's Office: The Only Place I Can Be Sure My Story Will Be Treated As Sad, But Interesting.

Moo May Represent An Idea, But Only The Cow Knows.

In Adding Up Her Assets, The Ambitious Lady Calculated The Worth Of Her Beautiful Body As Coldly As Everything Else.

Chastity Is Now Treated As A Sexual Problem.

Reality Is The Name We Give To Our Disappointments.

Infallibility And Invincible Ignorance Are The Same Thing.

Living Alone Makes It Harder To Find Someone To Blame.

Sleaze Is A Point By Point Refutation Of Elegance.

Bad Faith Makes The Most Of Every Ambiguity.

Repetition Comforts Me For A Time, Then Closes In.

Women Encourage Men To Be Childish, Then Scold Them.

I Must Like My Profession, Since I Can Hardly Distinguish Myself From It.

King Kong, Count Dracula, And The Phantom Of The Opera Are Just Looking For Love, Like The Rest Of Us.

Often, When I Want To Consult My Impulses, I Cannot Find Them.

I Would Be Glad To Worship Success If I Could Find Her.

When A Modest Man Praises Himself, People Listen.

When Appearance And Reality Coincide, Philosophy And Literary Criticism Find Themselves With Nothing To Say.

Modern Pictures Banish Depiction For Interfering With The Workings Of Paint.

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.

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I Am Only Interested In Money Because Everyone Else Is.

Thrift Is An Attractive Idea Until You Get Down To Specifics.

Wit Puts Politicians At Risk.

Every Seeming Equality Conceals A Hierarchy.

Dreams Are Distorted Representations Of Desire. So Are Dream- Analyses.

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The Unknowable Creates The Greatest Controversies.

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Ladies And Gentlemen Are Supposed To Be Looked After By Others, Like Children And Pets.

Few Artists Can Afford Artistic Temperament.

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In The Present Age, A Man With Harmonious Ideas Is Regarded As Out Of Touch.

Office Politics Are Bloody-minded, But Weak On Content.

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Psychology Keeps Trying To Vindicate Human Nature. History Keeps Undermining The Effort.

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Unlike The Actual, The Fictional Explains Itself.

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Flattery And Insults Raise The Same Question: What Do You Want?

Masks Are What They Seem To Be; Not So The Faces Beneath Them.

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Failure Makes Us Envious. Success Makes Us Greedy.

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The Mind Scolds The Heart, Which Makes Excuses And Goes Its Own Way.

A Crisis Unmasks Everyone.

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Intelligence Complicates. Wisdom Simplifies.

Undecidability Is A Useful Category Even In Dealing With Restaurant Menus.

Some Crave Grief Like Strong Drink.

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The Critical Spirit Never Knows When To Stop Meddling.

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The Young Are Just As Opinionated As The Old, But Have More Exciting Things To Do Than Sit Around Airing Their Opinions All Day.

We Express Disappointment In Everything Except Ourselves.

Carnal Knowledge Is As Forgettable As The Other Kinds.

Carnal Knowledge

A Sheep Who Goes Looking For A Wolf Is Sure To Find One.

Beggars Beg To Get Money, Not To Reproach The Passerby.

Intellectuals Have Opinions On Subjects They Just Heard About Five Minutes Ago.

Outside Literature, High-flown Sentiments Are Merely Exasperating.

We Make Some Changes. But Mostly Changes Make Us.

Self-absorption Intensifies Isolation, But Permits It To Go Unnoticed.

Expenditure Now Attracts Fame As Conquest Once Did.

I Am Most Drawn To Writing When I Have Something Else Urgent To Do.

Rereading, We Find A New Book.

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I Regret. I Apologize. I Blame Myself. I Continue As Before.

Talk About Yourself As Much As You Like, But Do Not Expect Others To Listen.

Staid Middle Age Loves The Hurricane Passions Of Opera.

Comedy Is Hostile To Profundity, And Brings Everything To The Surface.

Self-blame Usually Has An Undertone Of Self-congratulation.

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Home Again, I Can Groan, Scratch, And Talk To Myself.

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Avid Readers Are Enchanted By Meaning, Which Is Available Chiefly In Books.

A Work Of Art Is An Echo Chamber Which Repeats What People Say About It.

After Ages Of Bombast, The Rhetoric Of Virtue Has Become Ironic And Shy.

The Unhappy Are Prisoners Of A Single Round Of Thought.

To Be Thoroughly Modern, An Aphorism Should Trail Off Vaguely Rather Than Coming To A Point.

Wealth Makes The Laws That Poverty Must Obey.

Lovers Always Believe One Another's Sleight-of-hand Tricks.

The Past Goes Right On Pulling Me Apart, Though I Can Scarcely Remember The People Or The Issues.

Self-reform Is The Only Kind That Works.

Genius Knows Where The Questions Are Hidden.

Energy Falls Just Short Of Being Joy.

Boredom, Not The Will, Is The Mother Of Change. Necessity Is The Father.

Children Enjoy Inflicting Pain Until Unhappiness Teaches Them Tenderness.

The More Powerless People Are, The Longer They Are Kept Waiting.

Acknowledge Your Limitations Or They Will Tyrannize Over You.

Travelling, I Worry About Luggage, Prices, And Strange Food. At Home, I Am Free To Broaden My Mind By Thinking About The Higher Things.

My Regimen Is Lust And Avarice For Exercise, Gluttony And Sloth For Relaxation.

Virtue Sometimes Pretends. Vice Is Always Sincere.

Without The Blessing Of Cowardice, The World Would Long Since Have Been Torn To Bits.

Vicarious Living Is Only Slightly Less Impossible Than Vicarious Eating.

Old And Young Disbelieve One Another's Truths.

I Am Invigorated By Work, Wasted By Pleasure.

Travelers Never Think That They Are The Foreigners.

Rebuttals Never Alter Desire.

Totem Poles And Wooden Masks No Longer Suggest Tribal Villages But Fashionable Drawing Rooms In New York And Paris.

The Beginning, Middle, And End Are Parodied, Reversed, And Hidden By Modernism, But Not Abandoned.

Beginning Middle And End

A Sentimental Aphorism Is Even More A Surprise Than A Hard- Boiled Sonnet.

Rule Of Religion: Purpose Breathes Even In Dirt And Stones.

Work Saves Us From Melancholy. Pleasure Exposes Us To It.

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