It seems to me the book has not just aesthetic values - the charming little clothy box of the thing, the smell of the glue, even the print, which has its own beauty. But there's something about the sensation of ink on paper that is in some sense a thing, a phenomenon rather than an epiphenomenon. I can't break the association of electric trash with the computer screen. Words on the screen give the sense of being just another passing electronic wriggle.

Natural beauty is essentially temporary and sad, hence the impression of obscene mockery which artificial flowers give us.

Mozart's music gives us permission to live.

My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me-to give the mundane its beautiful due.

Students present themselves...like a succession of CDs whose shimmering surface gives no clue to their contents without the equipment to play them.