Just spunk won't be enough; you've got to have gumption.

The goal is the same: life itself; and the price is the same; life itself.

The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes.

You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.

The artist's task is not to alter the world as the eye sees it into a world of aesthetic reality, but to perceive the aesthetic reality within the actual reality. (On photographs by Helen Levitt)

Isn’t every human being both a scientist and an artist; and in writing of human experience, isn’t there a good deal to be said for recognizing that fact and for using both methods?

Some people get where they hope to in this world. Most of us don't.

You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice.

I'm very anxious not to fall into archaism or 'literary' diction. I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive.

A mother never realizes that her children are no longer children.

The camera seems to me, next to unassisted and weaponless consciousness, the central instrument of our time.

First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.

Your outcome is not necessarily decided by your income, but by your outlook. To improve your out look, look inwards.

We do not need to teach our children how to fight. We need to teach our children the miraculousness and transientness of life.

There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time they drew they gave each other half a point.

The fact is, the contest has always been invulnerability, and even when you win, you still lose.

I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me.

Everything I did, I did because I thought it was the correct thing to do… I am not a hero, it is true… But I am not a bad person, either.

Solitude would be ideal if you could pick the people to avoid.

And for those of you who want to start any trouble, I have a zero tolerance policy. . . .

Like the devout theologian seeing the Devil lurking everywhere, Menninger, the devout Freudian, sees aggression.