Perversity is the muse of modern literature.

To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have.

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.

As one passion begins to fail it is necessary to form another, for the whole art of going through life tolerably is to keep oneself eager about anything.

[O]ne person's 'barbarian' is another person's 'just doing what everybody else is doing.

One of the author's most ancient roles is to call the community to account for its hypocrisies and bad faith.

The decline of education in North America and I suppose in Western Europe makes it harder to have a common body of references.