The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera.

The first word I would remove from the folklore of journalism is the word objective.

I can’t stand these damn shows on museum walls with neat little frames, where you look at the images as if they were pieces of art. I want them to be pieces of life!

I didn’t write the rules. Why would I follow them?

Negatives are the notebooks, the jottings, the false starts, the whims, the poor drafts, and the good draft but never the completed version of the work The print and a proper one is the only completed photograph, whether it is specifically shaded for reproduction, or for a museum wall.

Hardening of the categories causes art disease.

I think photojournalism is documentary photography with a purpose.

If I can get them to think, get them to feel, get them to see, then I’ve done about all that I can as a teacher.

In music I still prefer the minor key, and in printing I like the light coming from the dark. I like pictures that surmount the darkness, and many of my photographs are that way. It is the way I see photographically. For practical reasons, I think it looks better in print too.

What use having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling?

…and each time I pressed the shutter release it was a shouted condemnation hurled with the hope that the picture might survive through the years, with the hope that they might echo through the minds of men in the future – causing them caution and remembrance and realization.

What’s the best type of light? Why that would be available light… and by available light I mean any damn light is available.

I’ve never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.

Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold.

My photographs at best hold only a small length, but through them I would suggest and criticize and illuminate and try to give compassionate understanding.

Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.

Available light is any damn light that is available!

You can’t photograph if you’re not in love.

The journalistic photographer can have no other than a personal approach; and it is impossible for him to be completely objective. Honest—yes. Objective—no.