There was a time when photographers were thought to be socially secondary, and, hence, not dangerous. Lincoln was more important than Brady. It didn’t occur to anyone to worry about the manner in which a photograph was taken.

Irony has seeped into the felt of any fedora hat I have ever owned – not out of any wish of mine, but out of necessity. A fedora hat worn by me without the necessary protective irony would eat through my head and kill me.

There was a time when photographers were thought to be socially secondary, and, hence, not dangerous. Lincoln was more important than Brady. It didn't occur to anyone to worry about the manner in which a photograph was taken.

What is loved is a hit. What is a hit is loved.

The idea of choice is easily debased if one forgets that the aim is to have chosen successfully, not to be endlessly choosing.

A tease is a con. You press a spot because you know that it can be pressed, and while the sucker is feeling the pleasure or the pain resulting from the pressure, you take something from him. ...A flirt doesn't do that. A flirt does a dance within the context of giving pleasure. Referring to this, referring to that. And suddenly, following the references, you find a little surprise. Nothing enormous. Nothing like 'Feed on me.' Nothing like that. Something small with a bow on it. It's a pleasure. A surprise, and a *gift*.

It is the idea of 'People' to treat its material as if it were history and, what is more, as if it were the history of a happy period.

Children are the beneficiaries - and also the victims - of the theater of various moments.

Wonder was the grace of the country. Any action could be justified by that: the wonder it was rooted in. Period followed period, and finally the wonder was that things could be built so big. Bridges, skyscrapers, fortunes, all having a life first in the marketplace, still drew on the force of wonder.

To a person growing up in the power of demography, it was clear that history had to do not with the powerful actions of certain men but with the processes of choice and preference.