“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”

A good book is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility what human nature is of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.

Self-respect. It would make me lovable. And it’s the secret to good sex.

Art is a form of consciousness.

Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours.

One can never ask anyone to change a feeling.

Being in love means being willing to ruin yourself for the other person.

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.

Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once, and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you.

The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes.

It hurts to love. It’s like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin.

Photography is an elegiac art, a twilight art. Most subjects photographed are, just by virtue of being photographed, touched with pathos.

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.

Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art.

It is not the position, but the disposition.

A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask.

All my life I’ve been looking for someone intelligent to talk to.

One of my daughters was a bit flat-chested, so she had implants and she’s got a lovely pair now. I see nothing wrong with it.

Begin where you are. Don’t wait for someone else to change things for you. Do it yourself.

The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.

I don’t make changes to confuse anyone. I’m just searching. That’s what causes me to change. I’m just searching for myself.

We need to take our passion and effect real change at the local, state, and federal levels, to help elect progressive leaders, and to stem the tide of division, fear and scapegoating.

I’m not silly enough to think I’m going to change the whole culture … but I do have a belief that soccer can go to a different level.

The one way the world hasn’t changed: teaching is still the most important job.

We are witnessing a seismic change in consumer behavior. That change is being brought about by technology and the access people have to information.