The World's Fair audience tended to think of the machine as unqualifiedly good, strong, stupid and obedient. They thought of it as a giant slave, an untiring steel Negro, controlled by Reason in a world of infinite resources.

It was a secular cathedral, dedicated to the rites of travel.

Fishing largely consists of not catching fish; failure is as much a part of the sport as knee injuries are of football.

Landscape is to American painting what sex and psychoanalysis are to the American novel.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.

We want to create a sort of linguistic Lourdes, where evil and misfortune are dispelled by a dip in the waters of euphemism

It is the nature of carnivores to get power and then, having disposed of their enemies, to deploy the emollient powers of Great Art to make themselves look like herbivores.