The desire to be primitive was very much a function of fin-de-siècle imperialism; it appealed to strong egos and domineering minds.

A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.

Christmas began in the heart of God. It is complete only when it reaches the heart of man.Why wait for a call when you have a command?

Works of art... do not force meanings on their audience; meaning emerges, adds up, unfolds from their imagined centres... takes one through the process of discovering meaning.

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

A Gustave Courbet portrait of a trout has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion.

Perhaps the rhinos and she-crocodiles whose gyrations between Mortimer's and East Hampton gives us our vision of social eminence today are content to entrust their faces to Andy Warhol's mingily cosmetic Polaroidising, but one would bet they would rather go to Sargent.