Roy was just another bureaucrat to me, but I realized very soon that without Roy this thing would have died.

When a man returned from the field and we'd look at the work, we'd criticize each other very genuinely and never offensively. And we would avoid all tricks, angle shots were just horrible to us.

I remember traveling around in Arkansas with Senator Robinson, and I told him what this little trick was. He felt very much part of it and had me take pictures of people unbeknownst to them.

Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.

When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.

I didn't care where my works were published.

I felt very strongly the whole social impact of that depression, you know, and I felt very strongly about the efforts that this Resettlement Administration was trying to accomplish; resettling people, helping them, and so on.

I became interested in photography when I found my own sketching was inadequate.

So, I was offered this job to come down there but first it was suggested that I take a trip around the country in the areas in which we worked to see what it's all about, and I tell you that was a revelation to me.

Roy was just another bureaucrat to me, but I realized very soon that without Roy this thing would have died.

Now, when I came on to Washington to begin my job, I was so interested in photography at that time that I really would have preferred to work with Stryker than with my department, which was more artistic if you wish.

Some time ago, we went to Asia and took a camera along, and I began to do what I'd done even years ago doing people. I couldn't get interested in it. And I did hundreds of photographs of details of the monuments as sculpture.

I confess that Roy was a little bit dictatorial in his editing and he ruined quite a number of my pictures, which he stopped doing later. He used to punch a hole through a negative. Some of them were incredibly valuable. He didn't understand at the time.

It's pretty hard to measure influence of written or visual material.

Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for the moment at which you are going to snap, you know.

The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn't have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn't get as far as Hoboken at that time.

I still love to look at photographs but I couldn't do it myself anymore.

I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography.

I was so impressed with the work we were doing and I was very involved ideologically in photography - that I arranged an exhibition at the College Art Association. The first exhibition I picked the photographs and so on and we had an exhibition in New York.

Whatever I get involved in, I'm totally involved, you see.

In '38, this time I did a job for Mr. Stryker. I went on his payroll at about half the salary I was getting before, to cover what he called Harvest in Ohio.

I was brought in, not in the photographic department at all, I was brought in on a thing called Special Skills. I was to do posters, pamphlets, murals, propaganda in general, you know.

In the South or in the mine country, wherever you point the camera there is a picture.

I've been asked a great deal about the influence I've had with my work and it's impossible to say, you know.

An amateur is someone who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.

I did take my camera along, as I felt there wouldn't be enough time to draw the things I wanted to do. I did some drawing and did a lot of photography but I was not part of Stryker's outfit at all.

I was primarily interested in people, and people in action, so that I did nothing photographically in the sense of doing buildings for their own sake or a still life or anything like that.

It's a little bit like my inability to read a guide book before I go anywhere. I can read it after I've been there and by the same logic I refuse to accept any technical stunts from anybody. I refused to learn more than I knew and I confess I missed a great deal.

To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them.

Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.

Paint what you are, paint what you believe, paint what you feel.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, 'The Intoxication of Life,' 'The Purpose of Life,' 'The Real Cause of Man's Distress,' 'The Journey to the Goal in Life,' and, one of my favorites, 'The Heart of Man.' They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

Debt on anything that depreciates is disastrous. financialfitness

About the time I was 7, I got really into black-exploitation films, so I made my own Wonder Woman, but I made her black.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

Charleston is an amazing place. I probably didn't appreciate it enough when I was growing up.

Hey, you know what, I've gotta go on that 'Letterman' show. That show is so lame.

Let your joy be in your journey - not in some distant goal.

There is just a major difference between the sound of analog tape and digital tape.

As I grow up, the lessons I learn in love and relationships and how we treat each other are hopefully maturing - hopefully.

I'd love to think that I'm a super human being, but I'm not.

Hollywood can be brutal, inhuman, the opposite of what the theatre is, and I had little desire to be part of it.

The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference.

I can't be under the weight of the character for a 14-hour shooting day. I don't think anybody can do that.

I'm taking special treatments for the cancer in my brain and in my liver. Part of the liver was removed, and they did the treatment on four places in my brain with radiation. And now I'm taking a long-term medicine that stimulates my own immune system to fight against cancer.

I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.

So I always think it's important to allow someone to reveal themself. If you notice something about someone that you like, it could really tell you something about who they are during a time of trial. The truth will come out.

I feel very lucky.

A single metaphor can give birth to love.