Quotes from Mason Cooley

At sixty, I know little more about wisdom than I did at thirty, but I know a great deal more about folly.

A blocked path also offers guidance.

Dancing and running shake up the chemistry of happiness.

Prudence suspects that happiness is a bait set by risk.

The supposed unhappiness of the rich is always a cheerful topic of conversation.

Pleasure usually comes when called, but not happiness.

Happiness is often hard-hearted.

You are as happy as you think you are, but not necessarily as miserable as you imagine.

Drugs bring us to to the gates of paradise, then keep us from entering.

As a child I was told by my parents that I was happy, but I did not believe them.

A Museum of fetishes would give special attention to the history of underwear.

History takes place between the Fall and the Apocalypse, with a narrow escape route called Salvation.

The transcendental promises a vacation from history.

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

Radical historians now the tell the story of Thanksgiving from the point of view of the turkey.

History goes out of control almost as often as nature does.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

Placing the extraordinary at the center of the ordinary, as realism does, is a great comfort to us stay-at-homes.

Travelling, I worry about luggage, prices, and strange food. At home, I am free to broaden my mind by thinking about the higher things.

Hope, and hopelessness, persist despite the facts.

Self-realization is a comedown from salvation, but still gives us something to hope for.

To postpone unpleasantness is human; to forget it is divine.

Imagination awakens ambition, then causes it to lose its way.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.