I reserve my greatest admiration for those who continue to struggle to embrace the whole impossible tangle of snakes that is our society; those who fight to identify and strengthen human connections, and defeat polarizing forces that strain to drive us apart.

The notion that the great artist requires a great patron has been around since the Pharaohs. That the born patron also needs an artist to patronize is a less-studied phenomenon.

How is the newcomer to deal with Rome? What is one to make of this marble rubble, this milk of wolves, this blood of Caesars, this sunrise of Renaissance, this baroquery of blown stone, this warm hive of Italians, this antipasto of civilization?

Good drama should sandpaper the mind.

The paradox of Reality is that no image is as compelling as the one which exists only in the mind's eye.

A handwritten, personal letter has become a genuine modern-day luxury, like a child's pony ride.

the metabolism of a consumer society requires it continually to eat and excrete, every day throwing itself away in plastic bags.