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" I always thought I was going to be an artist. I used to draw, and I would read Russian novels until 3 or 4 in the morning. "

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" I saw New York differently after being in Paris for a few years. "

" Fashion had no interest for me. I would take photographs in the studio. I would go back home, and my wife would say, 'What is the fashion like for this season?' And I would say, 'I have no idea.' "

" I grew up in New York, in a rough neighborhood where our biggest concern was not getting beat up. I was always far from the center of the Big Apple. "

" I like dark humor. I think the world is very funny and tragic, and my photographs are basically dark Jewish humor. "

" Leger was not only the first artist I ever met but also the first pop artist, and he blew our minds. "

" I wasn't part of any movement. I was working alone, following my instinct. "

" I was making a film on Muhammad Ali in 1964, and I went to Miami to film everything around the fight for the world championship with Sonny Liston. I had the good luck of flying down to Miami, and there was one empty seat, and the guy sitting next to this empty seat was Malcolm X. "

" In the late Fifties and early Sixties, I used to think that most of these fashion creators weren't that great, and if the photograph was good, it was mostly thanks to the photographer. "

" I was a very clumsy Jewish kid. "

" My grandfather and his wife came to America at the end of the 19th century from Hungary. Everyone started out on the Lower East Side. They became embourgeoise and would move to the Upper West Side. Then, if they'd make money, they'd move to Park Avenue. Their kids would become artists and move down to the Lower East Side and the Village. "

" I like festivals of all kinds: in 1969, I made a film about the first Pan-African festival in Algiers, which celebrated the countries that had been liberated 10 years earlier. There was a tremendous feeling of kinship. "

" I discovered that I could do whatever I wanted with a negative in a darkroom and an enlarger. "

" I was 24 years old at the time. I had no real notion of what photography was about. I had no training. By accident, I put a negative in an enlarger, and you can do many things with that negative. "

" People didn't object to me taking their photo. It was something everybody thought was their due: to be King for a Day, win the lottery and be photographed. "

" If I look back, I think most of the things I did - the films, the books, the collaborations with these magazines - were mostly by accident. "

" I had no real respect for good technique because I didn't know what it was. I was self-taught, so that stuff didn't matter to me. "

" Why did I take fashion photographs? I thought it was fun. And there was a lot of money. "

" Memories. That's the thing about photography. I look at the contact sheet, and it brings back everything: whether I was tired, whether I was full of beans. "

" Photography led me to experiment in graphic work and, actually, painting. "

" I find it satisfying that what I've done in photography has had so much influence in how people take photographs and what they look at and how they look at things. "

" The kinetic quality of New York, the kids, dirt, madness - I tried to find a photographic style that would come close to it. So I cropped, blurred, played with the negatives. "

" I'm known for fashion photographs, but fashion photographs were mostly a joke for me. In 'Vogue,' girls were playing at being duchesses, but they were actually from Flatbush, Brooklyn. They would play duchesses, and I would play Cecil Beaton. "

" My complaint is that Americans drive me crazy, and the politics drive me crazy. "

" My father was like Willy Loman, you know: he never really made it - and he was from a family where there were people who had made it. "

" If I didn't have to earn a living somehow, I would never have taken a fashion photograph in my life. "

" I did a film on Muhammad Ali before he was champion. I was there when he became champion in 1964. I was happy to be able to document the development of a real American hero. "

" Most of the other soldiers were older than me and sent money back to their families, so they were more prudent. "

" If a film is a real knockout like 'Raging Bull,' it does not matter that it might not have happened like that. "

" In fashion, you have assistants, flashes; you can make sets. There are people running around doing things for you. But I can take it or leave it. "

" French photography was basically poetic, and mine was vulgar and brash and violent, except that there's never any violence in the photographs: it's only in the photographic style. "