“When I had cancer, people were surprised at how cheerful and upbeat I ...” — Sam Taylor-Johnson Quote

When I had cancer, people were surprised at how cheerful and upbeat I was, but I couldn't let myself go to depression - to go there, that defeat would allow everything in. If you look too far into the abyss, you might never come out again. You can stand on the abyss and peep but not give in to sadness.

My parents were Beatle fans, but my mom was especially a Lennon fan, so I was exposed to him more. I remember her playing 'Double Fantasy' quite often.

Just because you've faced your own mortality, it doesn't make it any less frightening.

When I was out in Georgia doing photographs, I found myself trying to undo my own sense of composition. I'd think, 'Why do I want to take it like this? Is it because I want to take a beautiful picture?' It's quite hard to try and undo it.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that when you look into the darkness of the abyss the abyss looks into you. Probably no other line or thought more inspires or informs my work.

The human being is flesh and consciousness, body and soul; his heart is an abyss which can only be filled by that which is godly.

We are still fearful, superstitious and all-too-human creatures. At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers' apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.

In the past, the U.S. has shown its capacity to reinvent its gifts for leadership. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Nixon abdication and the Ford and Carter presidencies, the whole nation peered into the abyss, was horrified by what it saw and elected Ronald Reagan as president, which began a national resurgence.