You put your camera around your neck along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you. The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

When you are doing a lot of hard fast field work, it's a physical necessity to forget every day. You can't try to remember it in any continuity. You get so burdened if you try to do it the other way. You can't dictate to your material... We found our way in, slid in on the edges. We used our hunches. And it was hard, hard living.

I've never not been sure that I was a photographer any more than you would not be sure you were yourself. I was a photographer, or wanting to be a photographer, or beginning - but some phase of photographer I've always been.

The words that come direct from the people are the greatest.If you substitute one out of your own vocabulary, it disappears before your eyes.

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

Surefire things are deadening to the human spirit.

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.