I think maybe the rural influence in my life helped me in a sense, of knowing how to get close to people and talk to them and get my work done.

You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery.

You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both.

I have been born again and again and each time, I have found something to love.

People in millenniums ahead will know what we were like in the 1930's and the thing that, the important major things that shaped our history at that time. This is as important for historic reasons as any other.

I was born to a black childhood of confusion and poverty. The memory of that beginning influences my work today, It is impossible now to photograph a hungry child without remembering the hunger of my old childhood.

Think in terms of images and words. They can be mighty powerful when they are fitted together properly.