“I believe profoundly in the importance of museums; I would go as far as to say that you can judge a society by the quality of its museums. ”

“As far as I can tell the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on daytrips with the art departments.”

“Poverty does not belong in civilized human society. Its proper place is in a museum. That's where it will be.”

“I believe in walking out of a museum before the paintings you've seen begin to run together. How else can you carry anything away with you in your mind's eye?”

“We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).”

“I wonder if we are seeing a return to the object in the science-based museum. Since any visitor can go to a film like Jurassic Park and see dinosaurs reawakened more graphically than any museum could emulate, maybe a museum should be the place to have an encounter with the bony truth. Maybe some children have overdosed on simulations on their computers at home and just want to see something solid--a fact of life.”