Quotes from Mason Cooley

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

Artistic inspiration ignores the law of supply and demand.

The modernist writers found despair inspirational.

The muse is blind as Cupid and skittish as Diana.

Language is the friendliest of the things from which we cannot escape.

Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.

Cruelty is softened by fear, not pity.

Mind and body obstruct one another's pleasures.

Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.

Conscious thought is the tidying up at the end.

Money: power at its most liquid.

The power of lying is much less than the power of what is not to be discussed.

If you have no power, talk about your influence. If you have power, talk about the constraints that hem you in.

Power makes gods. Virtue makes martyrs.

Children must be protected not because they are innocent but because they are powerless.

Who would not give up wit for power and beauty?

When money disappears, we soon understand the power of absence.

Nothing is more cheerful than talking about our friends' shortcomings.

Intelligence without power cannibalizes itself.

Intelligence in isolation turns to aimless marauding.

Intelligence makes sincerity difficult.

Out of power, Marxism can develop critical intelligence; in power, it quickly becomes stupid.

Intelligence is predatory, but full of fastidiousness and frights.