Diane Arbus

I am full of a sense of promise, like I often have: the feeling of always being at the beginning.

There is so much work to working that there are moments, moments, where I stop and look around, and it seems too arduous to go on. It isn't, of course.

You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.

I hated painting, and I quit right after high school because I was continually told how terrific I was... it made me feel shaky.

I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present. I want to gather them, like somebody's grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful.

Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.

I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.

I used to think consciousness itself was a virtue, so I tried to keep it all in my head at the same time: past, future, etc.

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

That is why people have jobs and pay checks... it helps keep you from unanswerable questions.

This photographing is really the business of stealing.

My favourite thing is to go where I've never been.

The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.

I think it does, a little, hurt to be photographed.

Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed, and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them.

Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.

When you grow up your mother says, 'Wear rubbers or you'll catch cold.' When you become an adult you discover that you have the right not to wear rubbers and to see if you catch cold or not. It's something like that.

I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.

The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way.

Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.