The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. Usually both.

There are some elements in life - above all, sexual pleasure - about which it isn't necessary to have a position.

Result of self-consciousness: audience and actor are the same. I live my life as a spectacle for myself, for my own edification. I live my life but I don't live in it. The hoarding instinct in human relations.

All understanding begins with our not accepting the world as it appears.

That tendency of social thought to generalize, to describe a leading tendency in a society in such a way that it seems that everything falls within its iron laws, is very common. Of course our own experience tells us that life is not as monochrome as these thinkers depict it. On the other hand they are very valuable because they alert us to transformations we are likely to take for granted.

All photographs aspire to the condition of being memorable - that is, unforgettable.

Ideas disturb the levelness of life