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At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.

Gordon Parks

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Gordon Parks
Age: 93 †
Born: 1912
Born: November 30
Died: 2006
Died: March 7
Actor
Artist
Composer
Fashion Photographer
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Journalist
Novelist
Photographer
Photojournalist
Poet
Fort Scott
Kansas
Gordon Alexander Buchanan Parks
Gordon Alexander Parks
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks
Fighting
Fear
Abet
Anything
Compelled
Might
Failure
Firsts
Fight
First
Talent
Wasn
Sure

More quotes by Gordon Parks

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I have been born again and again and each time, I have found something to love.
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Many times I wondered whether my achievement was worth the loneliness I experienced, but now I realize the price was small.
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But I was very disappointed that I didn't get a chance to go overseas with that group, might not have gotten back but I wanted very much to go because there's not much of a record of the exploits of the first Negro fighter group.
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I had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil - along with the evil of racism - with a camera.
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I was there less than a year before I was assigned to the Paris bureau. I spent two years there and, in fact, before I even went on the staff I was sent to Europe to do assignments which they wouldn't normally do for a young photographer just starting out.
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And I think that after nearly 85 years upon this planet that I have a right after working so hard at showing the desolation and the poverty, to show something beautiful for somebody as well.
Gordon Parks
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I've been with Life now for seventeen years and I have written several articles for them and will be doing more writing and do at least two assignments a year besides my writing.
Gordon Parks
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Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit.
Gordon Parks
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The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer.
Gordon Parks
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Use anger to emotionalize whatever thing you intend to do in life - being a painter, a poet or a photographer
Gordon Parks
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The photographer begins to feel big and bloated and so big he can't walk through one of these doors because he gets a good byline he gets notices all over the world and so forth but they're really - the important people are the people he photographs.
Gordon Parks
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I think maybe the rural influence in my life helped me in a sense, of knowing how to get close to people and talk to them and get my work done.
Gordon Parks
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And now, I feel at 85, I really feel that I'm just ready to start.
Gordon Parks
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You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both.
Gordon Parks
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Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore every part of my mind. And with long searching and hard work, I became devoted to my restlessness.
Gordon Parks
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Think in terms of images and words. They can be mighty powerful when they are fitted together properly.
Gordon Parks
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I have never known anyone important enough to consume me in anger beyond a few hours. Better to depart their existence before they poison your own.
Gordon Parks
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So I went to Chicago in 1940, I think, '41, and the photographs that I made there, aside from fashion, were things that I was trying to express in a social conscious way.
Gordon Parks
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If a man can reach the latter days of his life with his soul intact, he has mastered life.
Gordon Parks
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Photography was my choice of weapons.
Gordon Parks