My biggest fear always is that I’ll photograph an idea rather than a person, so I try to be quite sensitive to how people are.

By self-analysis you can not change your character, but you may change your mentality.

I am a village boy, and Amsterdam for me was always the big town.

My way in for photographing people is really their work. I'm always interested in what people make, and then I photograph the person. Sometimes the person is a disappointment. But that's the risk. It informs me a lot about the character of a person if I know their work first.

There's a lot about records that you cannot feel from a CD.

I've gotten used to not looking too far into the future; it's best when you can begin each day anew.

Sometimes you don't know if your memory is because you really experienced it or because you look at your old pictures. I have a nice picture of myself held up by my grandfather and my father standing next to me. We all have the same name - we're all called Anton Corbijn. That's something I cherish.