Because I know war... because I know the horror, I don't want to add to it. .........After the war, we felt the need to celebrate life, and for me photography was the means to achieve this.

Taking photographs is not something that happens only in a moment I press the button. It is a full-time occupation. For me there is difference between leisure and work.

A photographer is a witness. He has a moral duty. Every picture must be true and honest. I believe a photographer's strength is his ability to accurately record reality. There are photographers who think they are lucky if they find unusual or special subject. But it is never the subject that is so marvelous. It is how alive and real the photographer can make it.

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.

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.

To me, photography is like a quest, or a pilgrimage, or a hunt. I love painting, I love music, but photography is what has allowed me to get outside of myself.

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