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.

Experiences aren't pornographic; only images and representations - structures of the imagination - are.

the appetite for thinking must be regulated, as all sensible people know, for it may stifle one's life.

Because each photograph is only a fragment, its moral and emotional weight depends on where it is inserted. A photograph changes according to the context in which it is seen: thus Smith's Minamata photographs will seem different on a contact sheet, in a gallery, in a political demonstration, in a police file, in a photographic magazine, in a book, on a living-room wall. Each o these situations suggest a different use for the photographs but none can secure their meaning.

... one of art photography's most vigorous enterprises--[is] concentrating on victims, on the unfortunate--but without the compassionate purpose that such a project is expected to serve.

You know that you can't make references to the Classics any longer and less and less to the English classics even.

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