Antonello da Messina's Unknown Man smiles at me every morning, without fail, without asking for anything in return.

A frame marks off what lies within it, and that alone makes it sacred. I imagine a ray of light striking the top of a gilded frame; the glint it leaves there appears to me as a slit through which I can see a second world. The frame would be more valuable than the work it contains.

When I step from one tile to the next, am I careful not to tread on the joint, or does it mean nothing to me?

I've been told that Derrida's entire theory of deconstruction came from the sight of a particular tile in the hallway of his house in Algeria.

Once, I spent a few hours thinking about what the word "chair" meant; the sound had stopped meaning anything—and I don't mean etymologically. I couldn't place it. There was a memory in me, but I couldn't give it form. Then suddenly I had a vision: I imagined a chair, and that sound became familiar to me again. I've read that chairs were originally a symbol of power and wealth.

Antonello da Messina's Unknown Man smiles at me every morning, without fail, without asking for anything in return.