"I told the students that whatever they did in class was for the wastebasket."

"When you do portraits professionally it's not a desire, it's for money."

"Well, I turn people into human beings by not making them into gods."

"I never stopped photographing. There were a couple of years when I didn't have a darkroom, but that didn't stop me from photographing."

"I'd never kill myself for a man. I wouldn't do it for anybody."

"I was invited to photograph Hollywood. They asked me what I would like to photograph. I said, Ugly men."

"My mind is vacant on names, but I know him as well as anything. When I need names they drop out of my head; when I don't need them they drop back."

"Everybody who does anything for the public can be criticized. There's always someone who doesn't like it."

"I don't know what love means."

"I think San Francisco is the best place in the whole world for an easy life."

"I was brought up on art. My father thought I had a great hand at art and sent me to art school. But he did not want me to become a photographer."

"When I need names they drop out of my head; when I don't need them they drop back."

"You see, I became kind of a drop-out in science after I came back to America."

"Some people say to me, Isn't it too bad that people discovered you so late? I never thought that."

"When people ask me silly questions about my private life, I just say, I don't discuss that."

"I turn people into human beings by not making them into gods."

"Oh, you ask me, what is the greatest torture of a person who does portraits for a living? I could fill several volumes with nice nasty stories. I don't know."

"I was poor. When you're poor you work, and when you're rich you expect somebody to hand it to you. So I think being reasonably poor is very good for people."

"I don't talk about success. I don't know what it is. Wait until I'm dead."

"I hate big models."

"I don't think there's any such thing as teaching people photography, other than influencing them a little. People have to be their own learners. They have to have a certain talent."

"I became kind of a drop-out in science after I came back to America. I wanted to photograph."

"A woman said to me when she first sat down, You're photographing the wrong side of my face. I said, Oh, is there one?"

"It's silly to keep people alive who have a terrible disease."

"I don't love the world. I think Jupiter should have hit us."

"When People magazine called me, I did the job on Ansel. I'm older than Ansel and he has to mind me."