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There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle.

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
Person
Demands
Like
Fairy
Freaks
Tales
Riddle
Demand
Legend
Answer
Tale
Answers
Legends
Quality
Stops
Persons
Freak

More quotes by Diane Arbus

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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.
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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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There's a kind of power thing about the camera. I mean everyone knows you've got some edge. You're carrying some magic which does something to them. It fixes them in a way.
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If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.
Diane Arbus
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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 condition of photographing is maybe the condition of being on the brink of conversion to anything.
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I think the most beautiful inventions are the ones you don't think of.
Diane Arbus
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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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If I didn't have a camera, the things I do would be crazy.
Diane Arbus
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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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Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.
Diane Arbus
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Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe.
Diane Arbus
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It would be beautiful to photograph the winners of everything from Nobel to booby prize, clutching trophy, or money or certificate, solemn or smiling or tear stained or bloody, on the precarious pinnacle of the human landscape.
Diane Arbus
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We've all got an identity. You can't avoid it. It's what's left when you take everything else away.
Diane Arbus
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Take pictures of what you fear.
Diane Arbus
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Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.
Diane Arbus
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...I would never choose a subject for what it means to me. I choose a subject and then what I feel about it, what it means, begins to unfold.
Diane Arbus
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One thing I would never photograph is a dog lying in the mud.
Diane Arbus
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I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.
Diane Arbus