The Writer, Like The Murderer,

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

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.

The Dominant And Most Deep-dyed Trait Of The Journalist Is His Timorousness. Where The Novelist Fearlessly Plunges Into The Water Of Self-exposure, The Journalist Stands Trembling On The Shore In His Beach Robe. The Journalist Confines Himself To The Clean, Gentlemanly Work Of Exposing The Grieves And Shames Of Others.

All Analyses End Badly. Each 'termination' Leaves The Participants With The Taste Of Ashes In Their Mouths; Each Is Absurd; Each Is A Small, Pointless Death. Psychoanalysis Cannot Tolerate Happy Endings; It Casts Them Off The Way The Body's Immunological System Casts Off Transplanted Organs.

[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.