I don't see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary. I see them simply as people in front of my lens.

If you are careful with people, they will offer you part of themselves. That is the big secret.

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.

The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.

...if you think of modern art like sex in all its forms - heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, multipartnered, bestial, whatever, with absolutely no holds barred and with everything available and permissible - that would be modern art.

I love the idea I can go off with a single camera and a few rolls of film unencumbered... I was not interested in the illusion of reality, I wanted to get close to what was happening.

What you need to be a good photographer is an overwhelming curiosity and a good digestion.