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)

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.

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.

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

Remember that life is a miracle

Horror is a curiousity, it's used we to go over on real horror it just prepare us for the hard battles. To laugh at somebody's harm... there is even and scientific explanation.

They are scared that the BBC or CNN may call them radicals, so they remain soft instead. The problem lies there, with the Muslim leaders, not the Muslim masses.

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

I'm a perfectionist... So to me, if I had my way, a song is never perfect, never finished.

We're all lost. The best chance we got is to wander this life with the people who matter.

People take things at face value on social media. Earnestness is the assumption.

There are times when you seek your solitude, and your solitude just wants to be left alone.

Men know no medium: They will either, spaniel-like, fawn at your feet, or be ready to leap into your lap.

The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money and that's it, not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it.