Rules of taste enforce structures of power.

The war goes on—an ache in the bones, an ache in the gut, an ache in the heart.

It was not a question of knowledge...but of alertness, a fastidious transcription of what could be thought about something, once it swam into the stream of attention.

There's no changing the way people are. No one changes, everyone knows that.

Most of my reading is rereading.

The beauty of modern cities consists in a sense of their power, cruelty, impersonality, massiveness, + variety (as in New York or London) seen against the architectural vestiges of a beautiful past.

Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can't force it.