It is a peculiar part of the good photographer's adventure to know where luck is most likely to lie in the stream, to hook it, and to bring it in without unfair play and without too much subduing it.

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.

If you read a lot, you will know a lot.

Tyler's words coming out of my mouth. I used to be such a nice person.

It's easier to believe the most outlandish lie that confirms what you suspect than the most obvious truth that denies it.

The only thing I can ever do is make a film that I can respond to. I could not make a romantic comedy for college girls. I wouldn't know how that works.

Coffee, whiskey, and fishing poles. That’s really all you need in life.

Pigs may like honey, but that doesn't stop it being sweet.

The world is not real for me until it has been pushed through the mesh of language.

I think there are a lot of other actors that are just talented, it's just about this opportunity - it's just about when are we going to be put in those positions where we can shine.

They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. Well, I'm going to pretend that I have drunk from the same well as them.

We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.