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" 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. "

William Klein

Play

Fashion

Brooklyn

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

" The best critics of America are Americans. "

" I grew up in Manhattan. For Manhattanites, Brooklyn was the sticks, a second-rate civilization. My friends and I, we were so snobby. Living in the Bronx or Brooklyn was incredible... for me, that was like a foreign country. "

" 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. "

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

William Klein

Money

Back

" I think that Damien Hirst putting a shark in a bath of formaldehyde is nothing. "

" When I made 'Polly Maggoo,' it was more or less the end of this collaboration with 'Vogue' because I made a caricature of the editor-in-chief and the fashion people, so they didn't really adore me. "

William Klein

Fashion

People

" My way of living and working is that I'll do my thing. I went from one thing to another. That annoyed people. They didn't know how to categorize me. "

William Klein

Way

People

" 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. "

" 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 always dreamed of working in Paris, of going to the Coupole and slapping Picasso or Giacometti on the shoulder. "

" Don't have rules, taboos, or limits. "

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

" 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. "

" 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 had an experience that was kind of backward. Instead of thinking that photography was a step down, it brought me a step up, to transpose and modify things. "

William Klein

Step

Down

" Fashion was more of a sideline for me. I did it for the money. "

William Klein

Fashion

" 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. "

" The digital camera takes photographs in practically no light: it will dig out the least bit of light available. I was amazed to see the results of photographs that I wouldn't take ordinarily. That's the advantage of digital photography. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

William Klein

Complaint

Crazy

" 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. "

" My sister was brilliant: she was in the 25 top math students in the country. When she finished college, I said, 'Spend a couple of months here in Europe. You'll get another take on life.' She never came - married some schmuck who made clothes for fat women on Seventh Avenue. "

" 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. "

" I'm an outsider, I guess. "

William Klein

Outsider

Guess

" I was fascinated by the Black Panthers because I'd been in contact with the Nation of Islam, thanks to Muhammad Ali, and their way of talking was that the whites were the devil, and they'd get rid of them once they took over. "

" I was a very clumsy Jewish kid. "

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

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

William Klein

Work

Led