Malice Remains Its Animating Impulse.

Poets And Novelists And Playwrights Make Themselves, Against Terrible Resistances, Give Over What The Rest Of Us Keep Safely Locked Within Our Hearts.

[richard Avedon's] Camera Dwells On The Horrible Things That Age Can Do To People's Faces - On The Flabby Flesh, The Slack Skin, The Ugly Growths, The Puffy Eyes, The Knotted Necks, The Aimless Wrinkles, The Fearful And Anxious Set Of The Mouth, The Marks Left By Sickness, Madness, Alcoholism, And Irreversible Disappointment.

The Camera Is Simply Not The Supple And Powerful Instrument Of Description That The Pen Is.

Biography Is The Medium Through Which The Remaining Secrets Of The Famous Dead Are Taken From Them And Dumped Out In Full View Of The World. The Biographer At Work, Indeed, Is Like The Professional Burglar, Breaking Into A House, Rifling Through Certain Drawers That He Has Good Reason To Think Contain The Jewelry And Money, And Triumphantly Bearing His Loot Away.

The Heavy Odds Against Finding The Desired... Work Of Art In The Mess And Flux Of Life, As Opposed To The Serene Orderliness Of Imagined Reality, Give A Special Tense Dazzle And An Atmosphere Of Tour De Force To Any Photographs That Succeed In The Search.