If I’d only known which [photographs] would be very good and liked, I wouldn’t have had to do all the thousands of others.

I must admit that I am not a member of the ugly school. I have a great regard for certain notions of beauty even though to some it is an old fashioned idea. Some photographers think that by taking pictures of human misery, they are addressing a serious problem. I do not think that misery is more profound than happiness.

I leave these speculations to others. It’s quite possible that my work represents a search for beauty in the most prosaic and ordinary places. One doesn’t have to be in some faraway dreamland in order to find beauty.

I admired a tremendous number of photographers, but for some reason I arrived at a point of view of my own.

The important thing in life is not what you get, but what you throw out.

Seeing is a neglected enterprise.

Seeing is a neglected enterprise.

I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learned to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.

When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.

In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music and to paint when I feel like it.

Photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you'd never paid attention to.

I have a deep-seated distrust and even contempt for people who are driven by ambition to conquer the world … those who cannot control themselves and produce vast amounts of crap that no one cares about. I find it unattractive. I like the Zen artists: they’d do some work, and then they’d stop for a while.

If I’d only known which [photographs] would be very good and liked, I wouldn’t have had to do all the thousands of others.

A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person.

I go out to take a walk, I see something, I take a picture. I take photographs. I have avoided profound explanations of what I do.