I know I am making the choice most dangerous to an artist in valuing life above art.

The goal is the same: life itself; and the price is the same; life itself.

The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes.

You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.

The artist's task is not to alter the world as the eye sees it into a world of aesthetic reality, but to perceive the aesthetic reality within the actual reality. (On photographs by Helen Levitt)

Isn’t every human being both a scientist and an artist; and in writing of human experience, isn’t there a good deal to be said for recognizing that fact and for using both methods?

Some people get where they hope to in this world. Most of us don't.

You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice.

I'm very anxious not to fall into archaism or 'literary' diction. I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive.

A mother never realizes that her children are no longer children.

The camera seems to me, next to unassisted and weaponless consciousness, the central instrument of our time.

Writing is a calling, not a choice.

Why not give the ladder of success an honest brave long try?

I believe in one God, the first and great cause of goodness. I also believe in Jesus Christ, the rebirth of the world. I also believe in the Holy Ghost, the comforter.

I have to confess that I don't read much of what is written about me.

Genuineness requires listening through both verbal and nonverbal channels.

I want to be in places I've never been before.

I try to get over to Iraq and Afghanistan as much as I can.

I'm not impressed by people's degrees. Harvard doesn't impress me, Yale doesn't impress me, Columbia doesn't impress me.

Thirst after body is the great bane of human life.

I stopped painting in 1990 at the peak of my success just to deny people my beautiful paintings. And I did it out of spite.