There's no geist like the Zeitgeist.

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

We have entered a period of intolerance which combines, as it sometimes does in America, with a sugary taste for euphemism.

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

What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants.

It was the basilica of gossip, the Vatican of inside dope.

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