It's possible I am the only art critic that a lot of people read. And maybe Robert Hughes, if he's still writing.

A lot of writers and artists are like chefs who eat their own cooking in the kitchen and then deliver an empty plate with assurances that it's great.

I have painted enough to have a lot of respect for mediocre painters. It's really hard.

I find that the mask of the critic is to have distance.

I have a total responsibility to the reader. The reader has to trust me and never feel betrayed.

Photography is the art of anticipation, not working with memories, but showing their formation. As such, it has relentlessly usurped imaginative and critical prerogatives of older, slower literature and handmade visual art.

You don't need everybody to agree with you, but you do need a few people. And by this point I have a fairly high degree of confidence in my judgment, in that I don't doubt my sanity; or, even if I do, I don't have to be reassured.