The writer, like the murderer, needs a motive.

This is what it is the business of the artist to do. Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.

The writer, like the murderer, needs a motive.

The camera is simply not the supple and powerful instrument of description that the pen is.

[Richard Avedon's] camera dwells on the horrible things that age can do to people's faces - on the flabby flesh, the slack skin, the ugly growths, the puffy eyes, the knotted necks, the aimless wrinkles, the fearful and anxious set of the mouth, the marks left by sickness, madness, alcoholism, and irreversible disappointment.

Writing cannot be done in a state of desirelessness.

Biography is the medium through which the remaining secrets of the famous dead are taken from them and dumped out in full view of the world. The biographer at work, indeed, is like the professional burglar, breaking into a house, rifling through certain drawers that he has good reason to think contain the jewelry and money, and triumphantly bearing his loot away.