I always thought that I was lazy because I could never tell if I was working or not. I was making things, which doesn't seem like work.

A lot of my work comes through accidents or circumstances that just happen to present themselves. I have to realize that something is presenting itself. Otherwise it slips right by.

I do feel a kinship with anthropology or ethnography, although when you hear those terms you think of something exotic. Generally, photographic anthropology has that taste of the faraway or undiscovered place. But my anthropology has more to do with what's in my reach.

I have always made films simultaneously, so they go hand in hand. I think that my books are like films.

My photography has really always been about what I feel I'm getting out of it. What people on the outside get doesn't concern me.

In New York, unlike Holland, there are newspaper stands on every corner. That was a big headline all over the city.

Dates can be important. It's a nice way to remember when I took the photo without having to rack my brain or look in the archives. It also makes every photo important, because there is the date. I can take a picture of nothing, but at least we know when I took it.

The place where I am is always my favorite place.

Holland is a fairly small country, and in a weird way, somewhat conservative. That might surprise people because it is a very tolerant place, but it's also a somewhat Calvinist country.

Sometimes when people look at the work I've done with my family, they think it's autobiographical. But it really isn't. It's more about the idea of family.

In Holland, things were pretty stale for me. Even though there were a lot of good influences and a certain openness to music and art and literature, I just wanted to go somewhere less familiar - somewhere bigger.