If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.

I think if I ever get satisfied, I’ll have to stop. It’s the frustration that drives you.

I realise that I had the best of serious picture journalism. There was an innocence in our approach, especially in the 1950s and 1960s when we naively believed that by holding a mirror up to the world we could help - no matter how little - to make people aware of the human condition.

What drove me and kept me going over the decades? If I had to use a single word, it would be 'curiosity.

It doesn’t matter if you use a box camera or a Leica, the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing. What I have tried to do is involve the people I was photographing. To have them realize without saying so, that it was up to them to give me whatever they wanted to give me . . . if they were willing to give, I was willing to photograph.

It's the hardest thing in the world to take the mundane and try to show how special it is.

I can't hold a camera anymore.