When you are writing, you are - from society's point of view - only producing the first version which will then be processed and recycled.

False values begin with the worship of things.

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

What I expect from writers-and from myself as a writer-is to articulate a complex view of things. To incite us to be more compassionate. To orchestrate our mourning. And to celebrate ecstasy.

Is it the obligation of great art to be continually interesting? I think not.

Any photograph has multiple meanings: indeed, to see something in the form of a photograph is to encounter a potential object of fascination. The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: “There is the surface. Now think – or rather feel, intuit – what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.’ Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy

It's almost as if this is the fundamental procedure in modern society: duplication and recycling.