My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.

How many pictures have you torn up because you hate them? What ends up in your scrapbook? The pictures where you look like a good guy and a good family man, and the children look adorable - and they're screaming the next minute. I've never seen a family album of screaming people.

He sleeps fastest who sleeps alone.

One man's fantasy is another man's job.

The way someone who's being photographed presents himself to the camera, and the effect of the photographer's response on that presence, is what the making of a portrait is all about.

Marilyn Monroe gave more to the still camera than any actress, any woman I've ever photographed; infinitely more patient, more demanding of herself and more comfortable in front of the camera than away from it.

I hate cameras. They interfere, they’re always in the way. I wish: if I could just work with my eyes alone. To get a satisfactory print, one that contains all that you intended, is very often more difficult and dangerous than the sitting itself. When I’m photographing, I immediately know when I’ve got the image I really want. But to get the image out of the camera and into the open, is another matter.