“Being an icon is overrated, remember an icon can be moved by a mouse”

“Some believe that as an icon the image of Oscar Wilde is too old and notorious--all right, not an icon, let him be our oriflamme.”

“The icon is transparent as a representation of the special reality it depicts; an idol replaces and obscures that reality ... but the difference between icon and idol is purely subjective.”

“Being a sexual icon is sort of like being the front man for an Orange County punk band: As soon as you can explain why you're necessary, you're over.”

“On the news that the Tsar had sent the troops icons to boost their morals, General Dragomirov quipped: 'The Japanese are beating us with machine-guns, but never mind: we'll beat them with icons.”

“The magnificence of such objects hardly pertains to the human. They live only in a world of icons and there they participate in rituals which transmute life itself to a series of grand gestures, as moving as they are absurd.”