I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant.

In every photographer there is something of a stroller.

Poetry is the essence of everything, and it’s through deep contact with reality and living fully that you reach poetry. Very often I see photographers cultivating the strangeness or awkwardness of a scene, thinking it is poetry. No. Poetry is two elements which are suddenly conflict — a spark between two elements. But it’s given very seldom, and you can’t look for it. It’s like if you look for inspiration. No, it just comes by enriching yourself and living.

Time runs and flows and only our death succeeds in catching up with it. Photography is a blade which, in eternity, impales the dazzling moment.

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.

...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.

The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.