You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both.

I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.

The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed.

I feel it is the heart, not the eye, that should determine the content of the photograph. What the eye sees is its own. What the heart can perceive is a very different matter.

Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit.

At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.

Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore every part of my mind. And with long searching and hard work, I became devoted to my restlessness.

You have a 45mm automatic pistol on your lap, and I have a 35mm camera on my lap, and my weapon is just as powerful as yours. (To Black Panther militant Eldridge Cleaver)

I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty.

If you don't have anything to say, your photographs aren't going to say much.

The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer.

Suppose it’s your last day on earth. Have you done what all you wanted to do, you always dreamt of? If answer is NO, your time starts now.

I agree that dreaming in not a crime, so I can dream as big as I can.

...[O]ne of the first things a Magnolia League debutante learns: Keep your thoughts and opinions to yourself.

She hates her heart, that misguided organ in her chest. Why didn't it warn her?

Taste, that eternal wanderer, which flies From head to ears, and now from ears to eyes.

As I small child and hearing all the stories about him I, of course, looked up to him as some kind of miracle. Then I got to eight years old and suddenly I was taller than [Bernie Ecclestone].

It flies so high, I swear I heard the organs playing.

I always felt people who took themselves seriously were kind of boring.

My work is my life, and my life is my work. I invented this assault rifle to defend my country. Today, I am proud that it has become for many synonymous with liberty.

Seems to me that there is no better way to experience the depth of loss than after the fact. No more powerful instrument of imbuing value in an object than parting with it.