Life is beating against the school windows. You must quickly open the doors and go out to learn that no door must be locked against you.

A burning purpose attracts others who are drawn along with it and help fulfill it.

The element of discovery is very important. I don't repeat myself well. I want and need that stimulus of walking forward from one new world to another. There is something demoralizing about going back to a place to retake pictures. You can no longer see your subjects in a fresh eye; you keep comparing them with the pictures you hold in your memory. [The] world was full of discoveries waiting to be made...(as a photographer) I could share the things I saw and learned...you would react to something all others might walk by.

The very secret of life for me, I believed, was to maintain in the midst of rushing events an inner tranquility.

The very secret of life for mewas to maintain in the midst of rushing events an inner tranquility. I had picked a life that dealt with excitement, tragedy, mass calamities, human triumphs and suffering. To throw my whole self into recording and attempting to understand these things, I needed an inner serenity as a kind of balance.

The world was waiting to be full of discovery made(as a photographer) I could share the things I saw and learned.you would react to something all others might walk by.

It seems to me that while it is very important to get a striking picture of a line of smoke stacks or a row of dynamos, it is becoming more and more important to reflect that life that goes on behind these photographs. (1935)