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

Photographs shock insofar as they show something novel.

One of the author's most ancient roles is to call the community to account for its hypocrisies and bad faith.

It's so effortless to let my loneliness defeat me, make me mold myself to whatever would (in some way - but not wholly) relieve it. I must never forget it... I want sensuality and sensitivity, both... Let me never deny that... I want to err on the side of violence and excess, rather than to underfill my moments.

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

whatever doesn't kill you leaves scars.

Indeed, the very first acknowledgment (as far as I am aware) of the attraction of mutilated bodies occurs in a founding description of mental conflict. It is a passage in The Republic, Book IV, where Plato’s Socrates describes how our reason may be overwhelmed by an unworthy desire, which drives the self to become angry with a part of its nature.