We are always remaking history. Our memory is always an interpretive reconstruction of the past, so is perspective.

If culture did not filter, it would be inane - as inane as the formless, boundless Internet is on its own. And if we all possessed the boundless knowledge of the Web, we would be idiots! Culture is an instrument for making a hierarchical system of intellectual labor.

It is a myth of publishers that people want to read easy things.

There is only one thing that you write for yourself, and that is a shopping list.

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

If photography is to be likened to perception, this is not because the former is a natural process but because the latter is also coded.

Two cliches make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us. For we sense dimly that the cliches are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.