My Year of Rest and Relaxation

The Death of Marat was one of my favorite paintings. A man stabbed to death in the bathtub.

Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. Who said that?

I had no big plan to become a curator, no great scheme to work my way up a ladder. I was just trying to pass the time.

Walking up First Avenue, everything made me cringe. I was like a baby being born—the air hurt, the light hurt, the details of the world seemed garish and hostile.

“I’m not fit to occupy space. Excuse me for living.”

“When something disappears, that’s usually where it disappears—into the black holes in our eyes.”

Rejection, I have found, can be the only antidote to delusion.

I wanted a mother. I could admit that.

I wanted a mother. I could admit that.

I wanted a mother. I could admit that.