The artist is a strange being. I think it's safe to say that a real artist is conscious of having a personal singularity that is partly a blessing and partly a curse. An artist enjoys and suffers from isolation. As solitude, isolation can nurture. It can also destroy.

Beauty is not a concept. It is the animal joy of the mind.

Everything I've learned about art was (a) because I was actually interested, or (b) I was actually interested in covering my ass because of what I was writing about.

Beauty makes us more like ourselves and more like each other.

I do have pleasure when I'm writing. I mean, I'm aware of pleasure. And sometimes I make myself laugh, with a joke or something; or I feel gleeful.

Your medium has to be alive to you, no matter what you do.

A word is a thought, of course. But any image, including a photograph, may become an instrument of sufficiently lucid cogitation.