“It seems obvious, looking back, that the artists of Weimar Germany and Leninist Russia lived in a much more attenuated landscape of media than ours, and their reward was that they could still belie...”

“It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say 'this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian'. Specific books, perhaps; but as far as one can tell, no paintings or scu...”

“Landscape is to American painting what sex and psychoanalysis are to the American novel.”

“The basic project of art is always to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and its occasional nastiness, not through argument but through feeling, and then ...”

“What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in ...”

“What does one prefer? An art that struggles to change the social contract, but fails? Or one that seeks to please and amuse, and succeeds?”

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

“Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.”

“Immer wieder behauptete Unwahrheiten werden nicht zu Wahrheiten, sondern, was schlimmer ist, zu Gewohnheiten.”

“You need to establish a degree of privacy and solitude in order to write”

“The more I'm let alone and not worried the better I can function.”

“Technology would have long ago made privacy impossible, except that this had only made it more precious and desirable--and in the close confines of starship life, respect for another's privacy had ...”

“Now you see, Dr. Stadler, you're speaking as if this book were addressing to a thinking audience. If it were, one would have to be concerned with such matters as accuracy, validity, logic and the p...”

“In terms of technological progress,the public is slower than focus group.”

“She hung up before he could say goodbye. Stood there with her arm cocked, phone at ear-level, suddenly aware of the iconic nature of her unconscious pose. Some very considerable part of the gestura...”