The possession of a camera can inspire something akin to lust. And like all credible forms of lust, it cannot be satisfied.

All photographs aspire to the condition of being memorable - that is, unforgettable.

Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future.

What makes me feel strong? Being in love and work. I must work.

art is the most general condition of the Past in the present. ... Perhaps no work of art is art. It can only become art, when it is part of the past. In this normative sense, a 'contemporary' work of art would be a contradiction - except so far as we can, in the present, assimilate the present to the past.

While a painting, even one that meets photographic standards of resemblance, is never more than the stating of an interpretation, a photograph is never less than the registering of an emanation (light waves reflected by objects) — a material vestige of its subject in a way that no painting can be.

The way in which a certain kind of political idealism has been discredited and scorned makes the danger not that intellectuals keep on making fools of themselves, formulating political opinions when they might not be as informed as they might be, but that they retreat and leave politics to the professionals.