Above all, the photographs I use are not arty in any sense of the word. I think photography is dead as fine art; its only place is in the commercial world, for technical or information purposes.

I just use [the camera]. I just pick it up like an axe when I've got to chop down a tree. I pick up a camera and go out and shoot the pictures I have to shoot.

I don't do social media of any kind. If I did, I may as well join Scientology.

Nothing's changed except the dates on the newspapers. I'm in my same skin thinking the same old thoughts. The difference between psychedelia and digitalia ages will seem like a smooth blending in years to come and will be a mere blip on the screen.

I'd read about Los Angeles and this fact stuck in my mind: that the city gained 1,000 new people every day. In 1956! A thousand people every day! I felt: 'I want to be part of that.

I would rather say that I have to be not from Los Angeles but from America. When I go to Europe or Asia, I find myself disoriented. I'm not so inspired by their culture as much. It's not going to really come out in my work. I would be more influenced by what somebody from America does - like a sign painter from Pennsylvania.

I have no social agenda with my work. I'm deadpan about it.