Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist

The priest’s breath was sour and hot as he moved towards me…Then there was blackness…I remembered every single moment up to a point…Then it’s concreted over. What’s buried there? Is it something worth exhuming?..Yes. Maybe if I say it, it will lose its power over me.

History is the open Bible: we historians are not priests to expound it infallibly: our function is to teach people to read it and to reflect upon it for themselves.

The Catholic priest, from the moment he becomes a priest, is a sworn officer of the pope.