I also photographed Maggie Cheung - but these didn't develop into a friendship either.

I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough. In fact, my pictures show me how much I’ve lost.

My desire is to preserve the sense of people’s lives, to endow them with the strength and beauty I see in them. I want the people in my pictures to stare back.

For me it is not a detachment to take a picture. It's a way of touching somebody - it's a caress… I think that you can actually give people access to their own soul.

I always thought if I photographed anyone or anything enough, I would never lose the person, I would never lose the memory, I would never lose the place. But the pictures show me how much I've lost.

Yes, photography saved my life. Every time I go through something scary, traumatic, I survive by taking pictures.

I knew from a very early age, that what I saw on tv had nothing to do with real life. So I wanted to make a record of real life. That included having a camera with me at all times.

I just get inspired to take a picture by the beauty and vulnerability of my friends.

My work is mostly about memory. It is very important to me that everybody that I have been close to in my life I make photographs of them.

I think the wrong things are kept private

My work shows the beauty in so many different kinds of people because I never photograph anyone who I don't think is beautiful. I never take an intentionally mean picture.

How unladylike of you to mention such a thing.

Willfulness must give way to willingness and surrender. Mastery must yield to mystery.

I always tell students that the first question to ask about any historical action is this: who makes money out of the deal?

"Life is unfair" "The goalposts will move" and above all: "other people matter"

Stage actors look down on movie actors, movie actors look down on TV actors, and TV actors look down on... mass murderers.

There is no light in earth or heaven but the cold light of stars; and the first watch of night is given to the red planet Mars.

The important thing is that ever since I realized all the wrongs that I had done, I have been trying to correct them for the past 27 years.

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.

We know that mental illness is not something that happens to other people. It touches us all. Why then is mental illness met with so much misunderstanding and fear?

Growing other leaders from the ranks isn't just the duty of the leader, it's an obligation.