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" 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. "

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" 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. "

" What's very funny is when you see amateurs filming something, they do some things no professionals would dare to do. They instinctively do things that are very avant-garde and useful. "

" 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. "

" My father was convinced that America was the greatest place in the world. I'm afraid I didn't have the family I would have dreamed of. "

" 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 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. "

" The best critics of America are Americans. "

" 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. "

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

" For my first book, 'New York,' I had one camera and two lenses. It was fotografia povera. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "