That's what a community is: taking for granted certain assumptions, not having to start from zero every time. This is no longer true.

The purpose of art is always, ultimately, to give pleasure - though our sensibilities may take time to catch up with the forms of pleasure that art in a given time may offer.

The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes.

Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.

Strictly speaking, it is doubtful that a photograph can help us understand anything.

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.

Loeb has been doing wonderfully patient work, exploring the American conscience from the inside. I regard him as something of a national treasure.