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

In the Somme valley, the back of language broke. It could no longer carry its former meanings. World War I changed the life of words and images in art, radically and forever. It brought our culture into the age of mass-produced, industrialized death. This, at first, was indescribable.

There is virtue in virtuosity, especially today, when it protects us from the tedious spectacle of ineptitude.

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.

Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre

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.