Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events.

[O]ften art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. . . .

If the public photograph contributes to a memory, it is to the memory of an unknowable and total stranger.

Whenever the intensity of looking reaches a certain degree, one becomes aware of an equally intense energy coming towards one through the appearance of whatever it is one is scrutinizing.

That we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.

We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.

Every painted image of something is also about the absence of the real thing. All painting is about the presence of absence.