The one thing I miss is hitchhiking. Now there's no more of that. When's the last time you saw a hitchhiker? It's not that I consider it a great sport, but it was my way of seeing the country. The open road, especially in the western United States, is still very pristine, but everything else around it has changed.

There was no hope for any kind of big opportunity. I'm not saying it was hopeless. The big pay-off was to work as an artist and gain some shred of respect from your friends, who were also artists. But there was never any notion that you could make a living out of art. On the rare occasions you had a gallery show, and sold a little work, well, that was just gravy.

The subject [of Los Angeles] became a general metaphor for anxiety and the speed of modern life.

Part of ego is displaying the ego. I've got ego, and I think I'm really good. But maybe I fall down in trying to sell it to people.

Yes, there's a certain power to a photograph. The camera has a way of disorienting a person, if it wants to and, for me, when it disorients, it's got real value.

People refuse to believe that I've never been to Starbucks or Disneyland.

My pictures are not that interesting, nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of facts; my book is more like a collection of Ready-mades.