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

“In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past but the one who invents it.”

“To paraphrase several sages: ‘Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.’”

“To be a woman is to be an actress. Being feminine is a kind of theater, with its appropriate costumes, decor, lighting, and stylized gestures.”

“Of everything that’s said, one can ask: *why*?… Strictly speaking, nothing that’s *said* is true… Speech can enlighten, relieve, confuse, exalt, infect, antagonize, gratify, grieve, stun, animate… But speech can silence, too.”

“The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.”

“The problem is not that people remember through photographs, but that they remember only the photographs.”

“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.”

“My library is an archive of longings.”

“My desire to write is connected to my homosexuality. I need the identity as a weapon to match the weapon that society has against me. I am just becoming aware of how guilty I feel being queer.”