Finally, the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads – as an anthology of images. To collect photographs is to collect the world

Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene - in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, abominable, repugnant to the senses.

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

the process of building a self and its works is always too slow. One is always in arrears to oneself.

...what I write is smarter than I am. Because I can rewrite it.

There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work.

To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more - and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize.