If you don't have anything to say, your photographs aren't going to say much.

I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.

The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed.

I feel it is the heart, not the eye, that should determine the content of the photograph. What the eye sees is its own. What the heart can perceive is a very different matter.

Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit.

At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.

Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore every part of my mind. And with long searching and hard work, I became devoted to my restlessness.

You have a 45mm automatic pistol on your lap, and I have a 35mm camera on my lap, and my weapon is just as powerful as yours. (To Black Panther militant Eldridge Cleaver)

I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty.

The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer.

The camera could be a very powerful instrument against discrimination, against poverty, against racism.

The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.

It is important to leave behind a rich and memorable legacy than just accumulated history!

By the time a man gets well into his seventies his continued existence is a mere miracle.

Hence, within the space of two generations there has been a complete revolution in the attitude of the trades-unions toward the women working in their trades.

My days are filled with work I love - reading poems, writing poems, talking with people about poems, teaching, directing a writing program, hosting readings, etc.

What is there in thee, Moon! That thou should'st move My heart so potently?

Art is art, and journalism is journalism.

There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven!

Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter.

Like the lily That once was mistress of the field and flourished, I'll hang my head and perish.