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I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself.

Diane Arbus

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Diane Arbus
Age: 48 †
Born: 1923
Born: March 14
Died: 1971
Died: July 26
Fashion Photographer
Photographer
New York City
New York
Diane Nemerov
Diane Nemerov Arbus
Diane née Nemerov
Diane nee Nemerov
Mean
Arranging
Work
Awkward
Something
Photographer
Things
Fronts
Like
Photography
Front
Instead
Awkwardness
Stand
Arrange

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Photography was a license to go wherever I wanted and to do what I wanted to do.
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I mean, if you've ever spoken to someone with two heads, you know they know something you don't.
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Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.
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Lately I've been struck with how I really love what you can't see in a photograph. An actual physical darkness. And it's very thrilling for me to see darkness again.
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These are characters in a fairy tale for grown-ups. Wouldn't it be lovely? Yes.
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One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.
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The camera is a kind of license.
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We stand on a precipice, then before a chasm, and as we wait it becomes higher, wider, deeper, but I am crazy enough to think it doesn't matter which way we leap because when we leap we will have learned to fly. Is that blasphemy or faith?
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The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
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The condition of photographing is maybe the condition of being on the brink of conversion to anything.
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The camera is cruel, so I try to be as good as I can to make things even.
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I think the most beautiful inventions are the ones you don't think of.
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The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.
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You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.
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Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe.
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Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognize.
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Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.
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If I didn't have a camera, the things I do would be crazy.
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I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.
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One thing I would never photograph is a dog lying in the mud.
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