The development of fast film allowed the subjects of our photographs to be caught unawares, beyond our or their control. But they are nevertheless caught the camera holds the last lanyard of control we would forgo.

One impulse of photography, as immediate as its impulse to extend the visible, is to theatricalize its subjects. The photographer's command, Watch the birdie! is essentially a stage direction.

I try to keep my voice in writing, and I think that's why I get so many complaints about how I write.

I don't run away from the idea of philosophy as seductive. I want the sentences to be prose but intense prose, to show that, like life, thinking is not linear.

Philosophy... is indeed outrageous, inherently so. It seeks to disquiet the foundations of our lives and to offer us in recompense nothing better than itself- and this on the basis of no expert knowledge, of nothing closed to the ordinary human being, once... [one] lets himself or herself be informed by the process and ambition of philosophy.

The academic world doesn't invite you to try to walk on two feet all the time. And in philosophy especially . . . it's a very intimidating place. The intimidation can be very thin, or it can stop you.