Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" In America, kids would go to college and get out and buy a second-hand car and go across the country and discover America. I never did that; I went from New York to Paris, and New York was my America. "

Related Quotes:

" I didn't really know who Cassius Clay was. I just wanted to show America through a heavyweight championship fight. Ever since my childhood, I'd been fascinated by the way the whole country becomes polarised around this event. "

William Klein

Know

America

Childhood

" 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. "

" Being an expatriate doesn't go down well in America. "

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

" 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. "

" The English are very exotic to me. "

William Klein

Very

Exotic

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

" 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. "

" 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 like the streets. I grew up in the streets. "

William Klein

Streets

Grew

" 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

" This is supposed to be the Big Apple, with neighborhoods where the houses are all good-looking and the skyscrapers and everything. But to me, New York is kind of shoddy and uncomfortable. "

" I always dreamt of becoming an artist in Paris. Thanks to the Army, it happened. "

" You do things for yourself, and you do things for other people, and you hope that these things coincide. "

" 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. "

" The best critics of America are Americans. "

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

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

William Klein

Matter

Real

" I think it's obscene. I don't know how you support the monarchy. How can you do that? "

" 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. "

" I'm an outsider, I guess. "

William Klein

Outsider

Guess

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" When I was a kid in New York, long before saturation sports coverage, the world heavyweight championship was, with the baseball World Series, the great national event. "

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

William Klein

Complaint

Crazy