Frank Lentricchia quotes:

The camera has a mind of its own--its own point of view. Then the human bearer of time stumbles into the camera's gaze--the camera's domain of pristine space hitherto untraversed is now contaminated by human temporality. Intrusion occurs, but the camera remains transfixed by its object. It doesn't care. The camera has no human fears.

Our personal past is only available to us now through black-and-white film, it's a medium for communication with the dead, including our dead selves, the way we used to be, which is why we're drawn to it.

No one can be the total cure for another person.

I want to die, stripped, by myself, of all fantasies. That's the goal. I want to feel what is real, at the end, and only what is real. Grip fiercely with my eyes all that is around me--the people of my intimate life, the objects in the room, without the evasions of fantasies.

In the end, everything is found to be wanting.

People are mysterious, even to themselves.

Take the road to contradiction, it'll lead you, I promise, to the palace of wisdom.