My dad had been an ardent amateur photographer, and he taught me to compose a photograph from the back to the front, and then populate the picture.

My best work is often almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.

It matters little how much equipment we use; it matters much that we be masters of all we do use.

Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay.

Essentially what photography is is life lit up.

We know that photographs inform people. We also know that photographs move people. The photograph that does both is the one we want to see and make.

Life rarely presents fully finished photographs. An image evolves, often from a single strand of visual interest - a distant horizon, a moment of light, a held expression.

A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and work and make mistakes.

Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me.

For sheer majestic geography and sublime scale, nothing beats Alaska and the Yukon. For culture, Japan. And for all-around affection, Australia.

I wanted life to be episodic. I wanted to be a magazine photographer and I was willing to do what it took to become that.

I am mission and must complete it.

Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid.

Life is partly what we make it and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

Sometimes, when you can't fix the problem on your own, you need to make some compromises and find the partners who can get the job done for you.

I would love, obviously, just to keep doing stand-up. That's the constant. That's the thing that I'm going to do for the rest of my life, but also I would like a TV show at some point.

I bathe in basslines, rinse in riffs, dry in drums

Reading more than life teaches us to recognize ethos and pathos.

When you understand yourself, that very day you have understood the whole of humanity. Then nobody can make you miserable.

Life's too short. If you're passionate - stand up.

I like to make colored xeroxes of things. I clip out pictures of Liza Minelli and her husband from magazines and I fax them to people anonymously.