It is the mission of art to remind man from time to time that he is human, and the time is ripe, just now, today, for such a reminder.

I confess that Roy [Stryker] was a little bit dictatorial in his editing and he ruined quite a number of my pictures, which he stopped doing later. He used to punch a hole through a negative. Some of them were incredibly valuable. He didn't understand at the time.

What is it about conformity itself that causes us all to require it of our neighbors and of our artists and then, with consummate fickleness, to forget those who fall into line and eternally celebrate those who do not?

I became interested in photography when I was sharing a studio with Walker Evans, and found my own sketching was inadequate.

I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.

How do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black.

Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.