I always felt that when I was photographing, I had a psychic need to see this, to photograph this. And I think if somebody else had been doing this work, and if I could have seen these pictures anywhere at all, then there would have been no need to make them.

[Eugene Smith] was always writing these diatribes about truth, and how he wanted to tell the truth, the truth, the truth. It was a real rebel position. It was kind of like a teenager's position: why can't things be like they should be? Why can't I do what I want? I latched on to that philosophy. One day I snapped, hey, you know, I know a story that no one's ever told, never seen, and I've lived it. It's my own story and my friends' story.

My greatest lesson in composition was looking at paintings.

When I started shooting speed, amphetamine, when I was 15, almost 16, it actually calmed me down.

For me there are no rules. I think I learned that from artists-from painters and sculptors. It took photography a while to catch up to them.

I was over self-medicating back when I was a kid and didn't know it.

The work all comes from a psychological need. See the images that I make... It's really a psychological need. I'm just jerked around by it. I'm pulled by it.