“The contradiction in perspective was that it structured all images of reality to address a single spectator who, unlike God, could only be in one place at a time.”

I wanted to write about looking at the world, so it’s more about helping people, or persuading people, to see what is around us; both the marvellous and the terrible.

The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play, not with form, but with time.

Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.

Japanese art looked closely around screens; Italian Renaissance art surveyed conquered nature through the window or door-frame of a palace.

Landscapes can be deceptive. Sometimes a landscape seems to be less a setting for the life of its inhabitants than a curtain behind which their struggles, achievements and accidents takes place.

The happiness of being envied is glamour. Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you.

Hair is associated with sexual power. With passion.

Never chain your dogs together with sausages. One must accustom one’s self to be bored.

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.

The opposite of love is not to hate but to separate. If love and hate have something in common it is because, in both cases, their energy is that of bringing and holding together

If everything that existed were continually being photographed, every photograph would become meaningless.

Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.

The zoo cannot but disappoint.

It dreams, like a dog in its basket, of hares in the open.

To be naked is to be oneself.

Emigration, forced or chosen, across national frontiers or from village to metropolis, is the quintessential experience of our time.

All our problems, all our disputes, all our disagreements can be resolved quickly to mutual satisfaction if we address the question.

President Bush in his inaugural address talked about bringing freedom to countries that don’t have it. He didn’t specify how.

The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple.

And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be follow’d perhaps by a smile.

And then, just as Wilbur was settling down for his morning nap, he heard again the thin voice that had addressed him the night before. “Salutations!” said the voice. Wilbur jumped to his feet. “Salu-what?” he cried. “Salutations!” repeated the voice.

When email and the Internet came along, I never publish an email address. I just stuck with this P.O. Box address.

The traits the word ‘childish’ addresses are seen so often in adults that we should abolish this age.

Any honest conversation about engaging young people must address discrimination against young people.