Literature usually begets literature.

Whoever invented marriage was an ingenious tormentor. It is an institution committed to the dulling of the feelings. The whole point of marriage is repetition. The best it aims for is the creation of strong, mutual dependencies.

Self-exposure is commendable in art only when it is of a quality and complexity that allows other people to learn about themselves from it.

It is the action of bodies on bodies, not bodies on minds, which the crowd enjoys.

An important job of the critic is to savage what is mediocre or meretricious.

Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitive relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment.

As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself more numb. To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible.