There are certain pictures I can never take. We turn on the TV and are smothered with cruelty and suffering and I don't need to add to it. So I just photograph peaceful things. A vase of flowers, a beautiful girl. Sometimes, through a peaceful face, I can bring something important into the world.

To live, to experience the world, to communicate with a camera, all these are interrelated and cannot be separated from everyday live.

The most important thing is to go out and see the stars, not to see them in books.

Sometimes I envy painters, it is wonderful to remain in front of a bouquet of flowers a whole morning, or even longer. A photographer is like a cloud, pushed all around, always dependent on the exterior world. That's what I sometimes feel as a pain and an error.

I think that the photos that we like were made when the photographer knew how to disappear. If there were a secret, certainly that would be it.

Nowadays, photographers start out with ideas, and their photos become the expression of an idea. To my way of thinking, a photo should not depend on ideas, should go beyond ideas.

In some way, a photo is like a stolen kiss. In fact a kiss is always stolen, even if the woman is consenting. With a photograph it's the same: always stolen, and still slightly consenting.