One set of messages of the society we live in is: Consume. Grow. Do what you want. Amuse yourselves. The very working of this economic system, which has bestowed these unprecedented liberties, most cherished in the form of physical mobility and material prosperity, depends on encouraging people to defy limits.

The history of art is a sequence of successful transgressions.

There is a terrible, mean American resentment toward a writer who tries to do many things.

Standing alone, photographs promise an understanding they cannot deliver. In the company of words, they take on meaning, but they slough off one meaning and take on another with alarming ease.

I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.

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