It is comparatively easy to achieve a certain unity in a picture by allowing one colour to dominate, or by muting all the colours. Matisse did neither. He clashed his colours together like cymbals and the effect was like a lullaby.

Hope is a contraband passed from hand to hand and story to story.

The autobiographical doesn't interest me. I could think of few things less interesting than rooting about in my life.

The existence of pleasure is the first mystery. The existence of pain has prompted far more philosophical speculation. Pleasure and pain need to be considered together; they are inseparable. Yet the space filled by each is perhaps different. Pleasure, defined as a sense of gratification, is essential for nature

One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.

When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls.

Photography, because it stops the flow of life, is always flirting with death.