Unlike a bow and arrow, a camera by its nature ensures that some kind of target will always be hit, if not necessarily the intended target nor in the intended way.

Like a four-sided porch I'm open to all winds.

I've always assumed it to be an absolute requirement for being a writer: to find all emotions and the sources of all behaviors somewhere within yourself.

Redheaded Peckerwood, which unerringly walks the fine line between fiction and nonfiction, is a disturbingly beautiful narrative about unfathomable violence and its place on the land

Subjectivity is my middle name, a trick memory is my pack mule, and self-contradiction is my trusty old jackknife.

I always give money to a sidewalk con if the story is a good one, even if I don't believe a word of it. Art deserves to get paid.

New York has no truck with the past. It expels its dead.

I realize that books are not the entire world, even if they sometimes seem to contain it. But I need the stupid things.

I realised that although I was fascinated with America, its history and culture, I was not interested in becoming American.

I try to take pictures on their own terms, considering the historical and social context from which they emerge.

When I was a child I did engage in an arduous struggle to pass: learning English, getting rid of my accent, becoming conversant with the culture in all its large and small aspects.

Prayer is the key that opens heaven

Not many get to see this side of him. So, if you do, know that you’re lucky.

The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.

The right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the unalienable rights with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims 'all Men are endowed by their Creator.'

It's the worst feeling when you come home alone late at night and think the stranger sitting on your couch is a pile of clothes.

Americans will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us. We will deal fairly with everyone. We will seek common ground, partnership not conflict.

Of course you have to believe in destiny; that everything is sheer chance is an intolerable notion.

I do my best to hold the director's opinion above my own.

Ive got a lot of life left in me and I want to live it doing things I like to do.

I wasn't certain of anything anymore, except that New Orleans was a faithless friend and I wanted to leave her.