“Painting is something that you need to do, if not every day, then certainly most days. It is almost like being a pianist: if you stop, you lose something.”

Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.

(The sight of it as an object stimulates the use of it as an object.) Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguises.

What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves.

Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible.

We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.

These contradictions both hide and increase the natural ambiguity of the photographic image.

Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast.

Words are so often used in the opposite sense, as a screen of diversion. It’s the struggle towards truthfulness which is the same whether one is writing a poem, a novel or an argument.

Fanaticism comes from any form of chosen blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma.

By contrast, a woman’s presence… defines what can and cannot be done to her.

What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.

To remain innocent may also be. to remain ignorant.

You can plan events, but if they go according to your plan they are not events.

Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.

All weddings are similar, but every marriage is different.

You cant draw it for others. You can try, of course, but it doesn’t work. People obeying rules laid down my somebody else is not the same thing as respecting life. And if you want to respect life, you have to draw a line.

But it’s not anything like what we envisioned it to be. It’s almost like there’s too much choice.

The substance is almost invisible to us.

Human-caused climate change threatens almost every aspect of human existence.

This is one of the magical things about drawing – it gives us almost visionary moments of connectedness.

Almost all the bars in Southeast Asia are lady bars. The listener and participants who interact and frequent the clubs are exclusively male who become actively involved with the ladies, not the music.

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions.

I have done almost every human activity inside a taxi which does not require main drainage.

I came to a stark realization: chronic surpluses could be almost as destabilizing as chronic deficits.