Photographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we're shown a photograph of it.

AIDS obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide. Or murder.

The only ideals allowed are healthy ones - those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.

Literature usually begets literature.

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

To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more - and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize.

Everything was simple, physical, painful, exalting. The world consisted of the four elements - land and water, firepower and distancing air.