To fulfil a fantasy is the quickest way to destroy it.

I never photograph sunsets and I never photograph moonrises. I'm not interested in what things look like.

One of the marvelous things about film is that if you expose it long enough you're going to get a picture.

Photography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old man’s face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a building—and then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. It’s the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing.

I am interested in the nature of things. The nature of something is quite different from the way it looks.

Taking the photograph is the easiest part for me

I think that the photographer must completely control his picture and bring to it all his personality, and in this area most photographs never transcend being just snapshots. When a great photographer does infuse the snapshot with his personality and vision, it can be transformed into something truly moving and beautiful.