I always thought that I was lazy because I could never tell if I was working or not. I was making things, which doesn't seem like work.

I have always made films simultaneously, so they go hand in hand. I think that my books are like films.

I had visited New York at age 12, and I loved the big buildings and the swarms of people. At 23, I decided to try it. I was going to go for six months, and I ended up living there for 18 years before I moved to California, so I am living the American Dream.

Holland is a fairly small country, and in a weird way, somewhat conservative. That might surprise people because it is a very tolerant place, but it's also a somewhat Calvinist country.

As my sons went into teenagehood, they started to look like some of the groups of people that I had photographed previously. They started to become like my old subjects. As if, as a photographer, you come around to the same visual points.

I'm a very curious person. And most people are charmed by curiosity - especially if you are curious about them or what they are doing . . . unless they are breaking into a car or something.

I'm pretty solitary when I take pictures. Even when I take pictures of people, I just go about my own way of doing it.