For me, bullfighting was this very spiritual engagement with power, with power and death. You're pitting yourself against a force that's stronger than you and then you're winning or losing. It's power, a power play.

Madrid reacting with the forceful protection of bullfighting as an art form is an example of the survival of the old values.

I never took pleasure in seeing a bull die. Relief, but certainly not pleasure.

In one era the majority puts its faith and sympathy with the bullfighter, in another with the bull.

It's almost impossible to imagine bullfighting abolished from Spain entirely. Values do change, though.

Animals are complicated and so is the animal-rights opposition. It's hard to read motives in animals, and hard to read motives in politics.

Cooking certainly has some of the elements of an art form.