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" The best critics of America are Americans. "
William Klein
America
Best
Critics
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" 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. "
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New York
Kind
" 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. "
William Klein
Thought
Day
King
" 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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Going
Thought
" 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
Me
People
" For my first book, 'New York,' I had one camera and two lenses. It was fotografia povera. "
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Book
Two
New York
" Photography led me to experiment in graphic work and, actually, painting. "
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Me
Work
Led
" 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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Tired
Look
Photography
" Why did I take fashion photographs? I thought it was fun. And there was a lot of money. "
William Klein
Take
Fun
Fashion
" 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. "
William Klein
America
World
Place
" You do things for yourself, and you do things for other people, and you hope that these things coincide. "
William Klein
Things
People
Hope
" 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. "
William Klein
Influence
Photography
People
" 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. "
William Klein
Think
Early
Late
" The English are very exotic to me. "
William Klein
Me
Very
Exotic
" 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. "
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Matter
Me
Know
" 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. "
William Klein
Sister
Clothes
College
" 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. "
William Klein
Doing
Fashion
You
" 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. "
William Klein
American
Happy
Hero
" I think it's obscene. I don't know how you support the monarchy. How can you do that? "
William Klein
Know
Monarchy
Support
" 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. "
William Klein
Brooklyn
Country
Friends
" 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
More
" 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. "
William Klein
World
Sports
New York
" 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. "
William Klein
Never
Violence
Photography
" 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. "
William Klein
College
America
Car
" 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. "
William Klein
Photography
Training
Negative
" I always dreamed of working in Paris, of going to the Coupole and slapping Picasso or Giacometti on the shoulder. "
William Klein
Working
Going
Paris
" 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. "
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See
Results
Photography
" I'm an outsider, I guess. "
William Klein
Outsider
Guess
" 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
" 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. "
William Klein
Money
Wife
End
" Don't have rules, taboos, or limits. "
William Klein
Taboos
Limits
Rules