To produce an authentic contemporary document, the visual impact should be such as will nullify explanation. 

 [After The Americans] I put my Leica in a cupboard. Enough of lying in wait, pursuing, sometimes catching the essence of black and white, the knowledge of where God is. 

 The beginning—full of joy—energy for intuition. I learned to treat intuition as a trusted friend… on the road and inside me and in the darkroom. (1962) 

 There are too many images, too many cameras now. We’re all being watched. It gets sillier and sillier. As if all action is meaningful. 

 Of all the photographs in The Americans, I think there were only two or three photographs where I did talk to the person, but most of the time I was completely silent, walking through the landscape, through the city, and photographing and turning away. Well, that is my temperament, to be silent, just looking on... What I liked about photography was precisely this: that I could walk away and I could be silent and it was done very quickly and there was no direct involvement. 

 I love mistakes in photography. Sometimes they work. 

 Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. Most of my photographs are of people; they are seen simply, as through the eyes of the man in the street. There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough—there has to be vision, and the two together can make a good photograph. It is difficult to describe this thin line where matter ends and mind begins. 

 I was [making photographs] fast. Hurry! Hurry! Life goes fast.