I don't like to work with assistants. I'm already one too many; the camera alone would be enough.

I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer.

Yes, I sold buttons to earn living. But I took pictures to keep on living. Pictures are my life – as necessary as eating or breathing.

Another picture I hope to be remembered by is this one of the drum major rehearsing at the University of Michigan. It was early in this morning, and I saw a little boy running after him, all the faculty children in the playing field ran after the boy, and I ran after them. This is a completely spontaneous, unstaged picture.

Photographers don't need to be aggressive. Some are. Henry Benson is aggressive - but then he's from Fleet Street. If you can talk to people, you don't need to push people around.

When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.

In a photograph a person’s eyes tell much, sometimes they tell all.