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Good Advice Is Never As Helpful As An Interest-free Loan.

-Mason Cooley

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Good Advice Is Never

Mason Cooley

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Good Advice Is Never As Helpful As An Interest-free Loan.

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The Real Secrets Are Not The Ones I Tell.

Old Age: I Fall Asleep During The Funerals Of My Friends.

Realism: The Wealth Of Detail Guarantees The Truth Of The Tale.

Alcohol Postpones Anxiety, Then Multiplies It.

Shaw Writes As If It Were Always Midday.

The Poor Live Slow And Hard; The Rich, Fast And Easy. The Rest Of Us Shuffle Along As We May.

Make The Expectations Lively Enough, And Action Will Follow.

Love Sorrows Are Addictive As Other Sorrows Are Not.

As Every Cockroach Knows, Thriving On Poisons Is The Secret Of Success.

My Father Liked To Moralize, And So Do I. But He Was In Earnest, While I Am Embarrassed And Pretend That I Am Merely Being Witty.

The Aphorism Offers A Momentary Sense Of Mastery Over Some Confusion Or Unhappiness.

Prudence Suspects That Happiness Is A Bait Set By Risk.

Even In The Midst Of Love-making, Writers Are Working On The Description.

No Use Saying Necessity Is Making A Mistake.

Making Mistakes

Great Men Wait For The Right Moment To Abandon Caution. The Rest Of Us Abandon It When Impatience Becomes Too Much For Us.

To Avoid Doing Anything, Wait For The Right Circumstances.

All Anger Feels Like Righteous Anger; Sorrow Does Not Care Whether It Is Righteous Or Not.

A Successful Restaurant Makes Everything In It, Including The Patrons, Seem A Little Better Than They Are.

Attaining Even Mediocrity Is Often A Struggle.

A Sense Of Blessedness Comes From A Change Of Heart, Not From More Blessings.

The Puritan Sours His Pleasures By Disguising Them As Duties.

Art Begins In Imitation And Ends In Innovation.

The Extravagance Of Intellect Outstrips The Extravagance Of Desire.

Curiosity Is An Asset Mostly Frittered Away.

The Theme Of My Autobiography Could Only Be Repetition.

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.

With Age, Comfort Becomes More Seductive Than Beauty.

It Is Hard To Tell Truth, And Hard Not To.

Self-reform Is The Only Kind That Works.

Dieting Is Our Last Tie With Asceticism.

A Small Boy Puts His Hand On The Wall, And Looks Down Intently As He Wriggles His Toes. The Birth Of Thought?

Hope, And Hopelessness, Persist Despite The Facts.

Intelligence Without Power Cannibalizes Itself.

Writing About An Idea Frees Me Of It. Thinking About It Is A Circle Of Repetitions.

Without A Little Negligence, Life Would Be Intolerable.

The Muses Inspire Art And Pretend Not To Notice When Mammon Buys It.

Metaphysics Keeps Surviving Its Obituaries.

In Love As In Art, Good Technique Helps.

I Am Skeptical In Principle, Gullible In Practice.

Fears And Lies Intensify Consciousness.

People May Show Jealousy, But Hide Their Envy.

I Pursue Pleasure, But Stingily, Suspiciously.

To Be Sexy, Nudes Need A Little Underwear.

Lonely People Console Themselves With Self-absorption Or Curiosity.

Either Offer Me Something I Really Like, Or Stop Trying To Tempt Me.

My Struggles With Myself Seldom Reach Aerobic Level.

After I Have Said What Is Required By My Vanity And My Morality, I May Find A Moment For Truth.

Lies And Promises Are Necessary But Not Sufficient.

Victorian Sorrow: The Stars Are Winking In The Sky, But Not For Us.

Symbolism Erects A Facade Of Respectability To Hide The Indecency Of Dreams.

Outside Literature, High-flown Sentiments Are Merely Exasperating.

Weakness Is A Better Teacher Than Strength. Weakness Must Learn To Understand The Obstacles That Strength Brushes Aside.

Victimization Has Its Privileges, And I Want Some.

Street Sign: Ho Hum Road & Easy Street In Retirement, I Look For Days Off From My Days Off.

Good Advice Is Never As Helpful As An Interest-free Loan.

Adrenalin Dispels Boredom. Run, You Sufferers From Ennui! Run For Your Lives!

Sensuality Takes Planning And Work.

Frivolous Sorrow Is Folly. Frivolous Enjoyment Is Not.

Aphorisms Have Never Seduced Anybody, But They Have Fooled Some Into Considering Themselves Worldly-wise.

Guilt Stirs Me, But Only To Self-pity.

Do As You Like--if You Know What It Is.

Thoughts Can Be Revised. Deeds Cannot.

We Understand Through Resemblance.

Most Of Us Live In A World That Has Ceased To Exist.

When Sages Commend Excess, Desire Is Sick.

Nothing Easier Than To Confuse Busyness With Goodness.

Authority Is Conferred By Position, Not Character.

Boredom Strives To Detach, But Finds Itself Stuck.

Too Timid To Talk Back, I Shot My Adversary.

Withhold Admiration From A Narcissist And Be Disliked. Give It And Be Treated With Indifference.

Like A Frog, The Aphorist Waits For Something To Fly By That He Can Catch With His Tongue.

The Power Of The Past Does Not Depend On Our Knowledge Of It.

To Gain A Reputation For Virtue, Grieve Over Those You Injure.

My Mind Is Led Astray By Every Faint Rustle.

Always Assume That A Lucky Hit Will Not Be Repeated.

If You Should Ever Acknowledge My Existence, I Plan To Snub You.

Paradise Endangered: Garden Snakes And Mice Are Appearing In The Shadowy Corners Of Dutch Old Master Paintings.

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

Clothes Make A Statement. Costumes Tell A Story.

Children Must Be Protected Not Because They Are Innocent But Because They Are Powerless.

Listen To What People Say About Themselves; They Will Tell You Everything You Need To Know.

As The Tenor Roars His Passion, I Think Sadly Of My Spreading Middle, And His.

The Educated Do Not Share A Common Body Of Information, But A Common State Of Mind.

Nudity Is The Costume Of Lovers And Corpses.

Wit Saves Us From Being Swallowed Whole By Life.

Call On Literary Convention, And It Will Gladly Tell Your Story For You.

Conventionality

A Yawn Is More Disconcerting Than A Contradiction.

Many Think That Assigning Blame Settles Matters.

Man Invented The Gods. Then The Gods Went Off On Their Own, But Not Far.

Perversity Depends On Reversal And Substitution.

If You Belong To The Underclass, You Are Already Guilty.

Every Life Has A Love Story, Even Though The Beloved May Be Imaginary, Or A Cat.

Every Few Years Something New Breaks Into The Circle Of My Thoughts.

When My Beloved Arrives, I Yawn. When My Beloved Departs, I Weep.

The Enlightenment Needs More Shadow; The Romantic Movement Less.

The Best Propaganda Omits Rather Than Invents

Reading Gives Us Someplace To Go When We Have To Stay Where We Are.

We Sometimes Find Truth, But More Often It Finds Us.

Scepticism Is Always A Back Road Leading To Some Credo Or Other.

Diplomats Lie With A Heavy Sense Of Destiny.

A Museum Of Fetishes Would Give Special Attention To The History Of Underwear.

Sorrow Also Fulfills Desire. Example: The Soaps.

As A Child I Was Middle-aged And Cautious Compared To My Impulsive Father.

In Love, We Worry More About The Meaning Of Silences Than The Meaning Of Words.

More Are Weakened Than Strengthened By Their Troubles.

Unlike Life, When Books Become Meaningless, They Are Making A Point.

The Party Out Of Office Becomes The Articulate One.

The Doctrine Of The Immortality Of The Soul Has More Threat Than Comfort.

Robert Frost: Plain, Strong, Simple, And Mean.

The Life Of Pleasure Breeds Boredom. The Life Of Duty Breeds Resentment.

The Cow's Point Of View Deserves More Literary Attention.

Yawns Are Hard To Refute.

Self-inflicted Misery Smirks Under Its Crown Of Thorns.

In The Museums, Everything Is In Quotation Marks.

Quotation Marks

Logic Teaches Rules For Presentation, Not Thinking.

Literary Criticism Now Is All Pranks And Polemics.

Small Faults And Virtues Are For Daily Life. The Big Ones Are For Emergencies.

Adversity Can Strengthen Us If It Does Not Go On Too Long.

Nobody Likes To Offer Stupidity As An Excuse.

Pornography Supplies The Only Really Safe Sex.

I Was Once In Love With Books. Now They Go Their Way And I Go Mine.

An Event Is Not Over Until Everyone Is Tired Of Talking About It.

Blackmail Is One Of The Great Pastimes Of Family Life.

Something Is Sticking Out Its Tongue At Me From The Corner Of My Mirror.

The Realist Lies For Advantage. The Fantasist Lies To Give His Dreams A Flavor Of Reality.

Stupidity Is A Fact Of Life, But Unmentionable. The New Prudery.

Wisdom Remembers. Happiness Forgets.

Pornography Does Not Inspire Violence, But You Can Break A Leg Trying To Imitate It.

Documents Create A Paper Reality We Call Proof.

Vicarious Living Is Only Slightly Less Impossible Than Vicarious Eating.

Infallibility And Invincible Ignorance Are The Same Thing.

Imagination Has Rules, But We Can Only Guess What They Are.

Studying The Past May Suggest New Ways Of Going Wrong.

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

Methodology Is Applied Ideology.

Elegance Thrives On Exclusion.

I Tried Self-sacrifice A Couple Of Times In My Youth.

As Soon As I Hear Of A Right, I Want It.

True Wit Has A Grave Intention.

As Children, Our Protests Availed Little. As Adults, The Same.

In Bridge Clubs And In Councils Of State, The Passions Are The Same.

Procrastination Makes Easy Things Hard, Hard Things Harder.

Procrastination

Sometimes I Discover I Have Changed My Mind Because I Have Forgotten What I Used To Think.

Transcendence Is Something Between A Metaphor And A Miracle.

Friends Are Sometimes Boring, But Enemies Never.

Listening To People Keeps Them Entertained.

Profusion Gives Pleasure Up To A Point; Then We Become Squeamish.

To Understand A Literary Style, Consider What It Omits.

Eternity Eludes Us, Even As A Thought.

Only The Strong And The Hopeful Are Able To Revolt.

Narcissus Weeps To Find That His Image Does Not Return His Love.

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

While We Are Reading, We Are All Don Quixote.

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

Innocence: I Am Only Stepping On Your Face Because It Lies In My Path.

You Gave Me A Significant Look, But Significant Of What?

Self-esteem Is Not Based On Itself.

Wallace Stevens: The Platonist Celebrates Endless Change, But With Regret.

My Self-absorption Warms Me; Yours Boils Me.

Self Absorption

The Critic Roams Through Culture, Looking For Prey.

Insecurity Is Not Just A State Of Mind.

The Ravaged Face In The Mirror Hides The Enchanting Youth That Is The Real Me.

Complainers Change Their Complaints, But They Never Reduce The Amount Of Time Spent In Complaining.

Your Words And My Words Are The Same, But Not Our Meaning.

Some Live In A State Of Passionate Indecision.

The Novelty We Want Is Always Close To The Familiar.

An Ardent Lover Often Makes A Cold Friend.

Now That I See You Understand Me So Well, I Will Avoid You.

Money: Power At Its Most Liquid.

I Feel Disappointed, But I Don't Remember Just What I Expected.

To Remain Mysterious, Say Little And Do Nothing.

My Love Grows Wide And Shallow In An Effort To Spread My Losses.

The Self-righteous Rule Out The Possibility That They Are What Has Gone Wrong.

When Lying To Someone, Look Him Straight In The Eye.

Conscience Is The Moralized Form Of Self-absorption.

Giving Out Crowns To Everyone Will Not Make A Nation Of Kings.

Money Gives Me More Energy Than All The Granola Bars In The World.

Few Friendships Could Survive The Moodiness Of Love Affairs.

Sophistication Knows The Score, But Is Powerless To Change It.

Comedy Distances Pain, But Leaves Signs Of It Everywhere.

Austerity Causes Constipation; Excess, Diarrhea.

Sex Is Not Imaginary, But It Is Not Quite Real Either.

Eccentricity Gives Misfits A Way Of Fitting In.

Nothing Goes Sour More Easily Than The Life Of Pleasure.

Sexual Attraction Makes The Strangest Bedfellows Of All.

Laughter And Tears May Not Persuade, But They Cannot Be Refuted.

Taste Refers To The Past, Imagination To The Future.

Pity Drowns In Numbers.

I Reject All Evidence That My Fabulous Beloved Is An Ordinary Person Who Worries, Watches Tv, And Has Bouts Of Indigestion.

In Middle Age, Going Naked Contributes Little To Public Enjoyment.

When I Go Out, I Hope To Leave The Worst Of Myself At Home.

In Middle Age, I Practiced Feeling Old, But The Real Thing Has Been A Rude Surprise.

Beware Of Wallflowers. They Expect To Have Everything Done For Them.

The Wretchedness Of Failure Is The Great Attraction Of Success.

An Omnipotent God Is The Only Being With No Reason To Lie.

Why Do We Never Expect Dull People To Be Rascals?

Imprudence Relies On Luck, Prudence On Method. That Gives Prudence Less Edge Than It Expects.

Children Enjoy Inflicting Pain Until Unhappiness Teaches Them Tenderness.

As An Elder I Mistrust The Wisdom Of Age.

Telescopes And Binoculars Endanger The Ever-distant Sublime.

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