“Hospitals were to her a memento mori in bricks and mortar; an awful reminder of the inevitable end that was coming to all of us but which she felt was best ignored while one got on with the business of life.”

“My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition.”

“Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics.”

“A brick could be used to save humanity from mortality. Or at least save us from mortar. 
”

“Living, just by itself - what a dirge that is! Life is a classroom and Boredom's the usher, there all the time to spy on you; whatever happens, you've got to look as if you were awfully busy all the time doing something that's terribly exciting - or he'll come along and nibble your brain.”

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”