I am neither an economist nor a photographer of monuments, and I am not much of a journalist either. What I am trying to do more than anything else is to observe life.

A photographer is part pick-pocket and part tightrope dancer.

A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.

...it is seldom indeed that a composition which was poor when the picture was taken can be improved by reshaping it in the dark room.

Photography must seize upon this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it. The photographers eye is perpetually evaluating. A photographer can bring coincidence of line simply by moving his head a fraction of a millimeter. He can modify perspectives by a slight bending of the knees. By placing the camera closer to or farther from the subject, he draws a detail — and it can be subordinated, or he can be tyrannized by it.

I suddenly understood that photography can fix eternity in a moment. It is the only photo that influenced me. There is such intensity in this image, such spontaneity, such joie de vivre, such miraculousness, that even today it still bowls me over.