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I'm very little drawn to photographing people that are known or even subjects that are known. They fascinate me when I've barely heard of them.

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
Subjects
Heard
Known
Littles
Fascinate
Little
Photographing
Even
Barely
People
Drawn
Photographer

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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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The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.
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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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You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.
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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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The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
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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.
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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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I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.
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A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.
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I think it does, a little, hurt to be photographed.
Diane Arbus
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I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.
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Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.
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There are an awful lot of people in the world and it's going to be terribly hard to photograph all of them... It was my teacher Lisette Model who finally made it clear to me that the more specific you are, the more general it will be.
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Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.
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One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.
Diane Arbus
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These are characters in a fairy tale for grown-ups. Wouldn't it be lovely? Yes.
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.
Diane Arbus
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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.
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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