I tend to think of the act of photographing, generally speaking, as an adventure. My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.

A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.

Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience.

I think all families are creepy in a way.

Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe.

If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life. I mean people are going to say, You're crazy. Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.