As soon as I got funny, I killed any majestic intentions in my work.

I was born on a tiny cot in southwestern Massachusetts during World War II. A sickly child, I turned to photography to overcome my loneliness and isolation.

I was working with mud and photographs and thread, eyelashes, carrots and acetone... I was throwing radios off buildings and... remember floating styrofoam commas down the Milwaukee River.

My Weimaraners are perfect fashion models. Their elegant, slinky forms are covered in gray - and gray, everyone knows, goes with anything.

Dangle something in front of the camera. Get something surprising to be released.

I get so confused about life photography art.

Start with a premise and then somehow invert it.

Man Ray takes a lot of pressure off me. It's like having a third person in a conversation; one of you doesn't have to talk all the time.

I was really relieved not to have to drag something in front of the camera; I could use a pencil and paper. A regular pencil and typing paper. That appealed to me.

Smartness without wisdom is stupidity.

Sympathy is imagining the pain. Empathy is having suffered through it first.

We look wishfully to emergencies, to eventful, revolutionary times...and think how easy to have taken our part when the drum was rolling and the house was burning over our heads. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I realize I'm a very lucky man. I love what I do, I love films, TV and theater, and the fact that I'm able to make a living at it staggers me.

If you ever meet anyone who tells you his or her religion can offer all the answers, run for the hills. Or at least hide your wallet.

Borrow from your friends, and when they ain't got any more money, make new friends.

If any changes were to be made in society it had to be by the mothers.

The law is not thrust upon man; it rests deep within him, to waken when the call comes.

Happiness is a way of travelling and not a final destination.

World power means nothing. Only the unsayable, jeweled inner life matters.