The artist is one who makes a concentrated statement about the world in which he lives and that statement tends to become impersonal-it tends to become universal and enduring because it comes out of something very particular.

I read the other day that Minor White said it takes twenty years to become a photographer. I think that is a bit of an exaggeration. I would say, judging from myself, that it takes at least eight or nine years. But it does not take any longer than it takes to learn to play the piano or the violin. If it takes twenty years, you might as well forget about it!

The documentary photographer aims his camera at the real world to record truthfulness. At the same time, he must strive for form, to devise effective ways of organizing and using the material. For content and form are interrelated. The problems presented by content and form must be so developed that the result is fundimentally [sic] true to the realities of life as we know it. The chief problem is to find a form that adequately represents the reality.

Photography is only a new road from a different direction, but moving toward the common goal, which is life.

I like to photograph people who have strength and dignity in their faces. Whatever life has done to them, it hasn’t destroyed them.

The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.

Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence.