Many people one meets in life somehow think they know you simply because they're hanging out at the same counter-but they really don't know a thing about you.

Whatever it is about pictures, photographs, it's just about impossible to follow up with words. They don't have anything to do with each other.

I’ve always assumed that the abstract qualities of [my] photographs are obvious. For instance, I can turn them upside down and they’re still interesting to me as pictures. If you turn a picture that’s not well organized upside down, it won’t work.

I would play music every day from the time I was about 4 or 5 years old. Every time I would go from one end of the house to the other, I would pass the piano and play a few notes.

I had the attitude that I would work with this present-day material and do the best I could to describe it with photography, not intending to make any particular comment about whether it was good or bad or whether I liked it or not. It was just there, and I was interested in it. That's what I still do today.

I would go there quite frequently. I met and became close with John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art. He was incredibly supportive about me working in color.

I only ever take one picture of one thing. Literally. Never two. So then that picture is taken and then the next one is waiting somewhere else.