The moral pleasure in art, as well as the moral service that art performs, consists in the intelligent gratification of consciousness.

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.

In the final analysis, style is art. And art is nothing more or less than various modes of stylized, dehumanized representation.

The romantic treatment of death asserts that people were made singular, made more interesting, by their illnesses.

10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.

One set of messages of the society we live in is: Consume. Grow. Do what you want. Amuse yourselves.