The Past Grows Gradually Around One, Like

What Distinguished Man From Animals Was The Human Capacity For Symbolic Thought, The Capacity Which Was Inseparable From The Development Of Language In Which Words Were Not Mere Signals, But Signifiers Of Something Other Than Themselves. Yet The First Symbols Were Animals. What Distinguished Men From Animals Was Born Of Their Relationship With Them.

The Impulse To Paint Comes Neither From Observation Nor From The Soul (which Is Probably Blind) But From An Encounter: The Encounter Between Painter And Model: Even If The Model Is A Mountain Or A Shelf Of Empty Medicine Bottles.

The Heart Of Paris Is Like Nothing So Much As The Unending Interior Of A House. Buildings Become Furniture, Courtyards Become Carpets And Arrases, The Streets Are Like Galleries, The Boulevards Conservatories. It Is A House, One Or Two Centuries Old, Rich, Bourgeois, Distinguished. The Only Way Of Going Out, Or Shutting The Door Behind You, Is To Leave The Centre.

Ours Is The Century Of Enforced Travel Of Disappearances. The Century Of People Helplessly Seeing Others, Who Were Close To Them, Disappear Over The Horizon.

A Man's Presence Suggests What He Is Capable Of Doing To You Or For You. By Contrast, A Woman's Presence... Defines What Can And Cannot Be Done To Her.