Under examination by the camera, a human body becomes for its inhabitant a field of betrayal more than a ground of communication, and the camera's further power is manifested as it documents the individual's self-conscious efforts to control the body each time it is conscious of the camera's attention to it.

Philosophy... is indeed outrageous, inherently so. It seeks to disquiet the foundations of our lives and to offer us in recompense nothing better than itself- and this on the basis of no expert knowledge, of nothing closed to the ordinary human being, once... [one] lets himself or herself be informed by the process and ambition of philosophy.

I know how to give the meaning of a word but not how to give the intention of a word.

The achievement of happiness requires not the satisfaction of our needs but the examination and transformation of those needs.

I try to keep my voice in writing, and I think that's why I get so many complaints about how I write.

One impulse of photography, as immediate as its impulse to extend the visible, is to theatricalize its subjects. The photographer's command, Watch the birdie! is essentially a stage direction.

The development of fast film allowed the subjects of our photographs to be caught unawares, beyond our or their control. But they are nevertheless caught; the camera holds the last lanyard of control we would forgo.