I thought I was taking pictures of things that I hated. But there was something about these pictures. They were unexpectedly, disconcertingly glorious.

When you stop searching and you calm down and you put your books away, and you confront yourself and see what you are all about, that will bring about bliss faster than anything you can ever imagine or ever do.

No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go. Totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, nothing.

The only burden you have ever had is your mind.

Change no one. Change nothing. React to no one, react to nothing. Do not live in the past and do not, worry about the future. Stay in the eternal now, where all is well. After all you are me and I am you. There's no difference. Do not react to the world. Do not even react to your own body. Do not even react to your own thoughts. Learn to become the witness. Learn to be quiet.

...I felt that photography ought to start with and remain faithful to the appearance of the world, and in so doing record contradictions. The greatest pictures would then... find wholeness in the torn world.

My first show at MoMA in New York was pictures of new developments along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. They were housing developments that were brutal in many ways, that cared almost not a thing for the human beings inside. They were just designed to make money.