The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects.

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.

Ours is a time of the machine, and ours is a need to know that the machine can be put to creative human effort. If not, the machine can destroy us.

No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually ... I know what we could make of it if people only thought we could dare look at ourselves.

I believe in living with the camera, and not using the camera.

You go into a room and you know where you're welcome; you know where you're unwelcome.Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.The people who are garrulous and wear their heart on their sleeve and tell you everything, that's one kind of person, but the fellow who's hiding behind a tree and hoping you don't see him is the fellow that you'd better find out why.

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.