The only thing which completely was an amazement to me and brought me to photography was the work of Munkacsi. When I saw the photograph of Munkacsi of the black kids running in a wave, I couldn't believe such a thing could be caught with the camera. I said, 'Damn it', I took my camera and went out into the street.

He made me suddenly realize that photographs could reach eternity through the moment.

What do you think I'm a professor of? The little finger? (On offers of honorary doctorates.)

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's own originality. It is a way of life.

You just have to live and life will give you pictures.

Pictures should never be posed. They are 'revealed' so must be accepted as they are. Left alone.