A work of art, so far as it is a work of art, cannot - whatever the artist's personal intention - advocate anything at all.

Is it the obligation of great art to be continually interesting? I think not.

I don't write easily or rapidly. My first draft usually has only a few elements worth keeping. I have to find what those are and build from them and throw out what doesn't work, or what simply is not alive.

Some of the exuberance of my essay-writing has gone because I'm worried about the uses they could serve.

Why wouldn't you write to escape yourself as much as you might write to express yourself? It's far more interesting to write about others.

I love to read the way people love to watch television.

The photographer both loots and preserves, denounces and consecrates.