Diane Arbus Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

  Diane Arbus

  Inspirational, Success, Uplifting

  28 Copy quote

• Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe.

  Diane Arbus

  Mean, My Best Friend, Mixtures

  "Wrestling with Diane Arbus" by Germaine Greer, www.theguardian.com. October 7, 2005.

  12 Copy quote

• If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.

  Diane Arbus

  Reality, Way, Photographer

  13 Copy quote

• Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognize.

  Diane Arbus

  Happiness, Said, They Said

  37 Copy quote

• If I didn't have a camera, the things I do would be crazy.

  Diane Arbus

  Crazy, Cameras, Would Be

  12 Copy quote

• I mean, it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them.

  Diane Arbus

  Believe, Mean, Littles

  9 Copy quote

• You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.

  Diane Arbus

  Reality, Flaws, Appearance

  Diane Arbus (2003). “Diane Arbus: revelations”, Random House (NY)

  8 Copy quote

• Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice, pull down your pants and slide on the ice.

  Diane Arbus

  Ice, Gentleman, Pants

  31 Copy quote

• There's a kind of power thing about the camera. I mean everyone knows you've got some edge. You're carrying some magic which does something to them. It fixes them in a way.

  Diane Arbus

  Mean, Magic, Cameras

  26 Copy quote

• I don't know what good composition is.... Sometimes for me composition has to do with a certain brightness or a certain coming to restness and other times it has to do with funny mistakes. There's a kind of rightness and wrongness and sometimes I like rightness and sometimes I like wrongness.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Mistake, Brightness

  14 Copy quote

• Lately I've been struck with how I really love what you can't see in a photograph. An actual physical darkness. And it's very thrilling for me to see darkness again.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Darkness, Photograph

  Diane Arbus (2003). “Diane Arbus: revelations”, Random House (NY)

  13 Copy quote

• What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's.... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Tragedy, Skins

  7 Copy quote

• I think the most beautiful inventions are the ones you don't think of.

  Diane Arbus

  Beautiful, Thinking, Photographer

  9 Copy quote

• It's always seemed to me that photography tends to deal with facts whereas film tends to deal with fiction.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Fiction, Facts

  Diane Arbus (2003). “Diane Arbus: revelations”, Random House (NY)

  11 Copy quote

• I think it does, a little, hurt to be photographed.

  Diane Arbus

  Hurt, Thinking, Doe

  Diane Arbus (2003). “Diane Arbus: revelations”, Random House (NY)

  4 Copy quote

• The Chinese have a theory that you pass through boredom into fascination and I think it's true. I would never choose a subject for what it means to me or what I think about it. You've just got to choose a subject - and what you feel about it, what it means, begins to unfold if you just plain choose a subject and do it enough.

  Diane Arbus

  Mean, Thinking, Boredom

  José Napoleón Oropeza, Diane Arbus (1986). “El bosque de los elegidos: escrito en homenaje a Diane Arbus”

  16 Copy quote

• Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe.

  Diane Arbus

  People, Needs, Looks

  Diane Arbus (2003). “Diane Arbus: revelations”, Random House (NY)

  15 Copy quote

• The camera is cruel, so I try to be as good as I can to make things even.

  Diane Arbus

  Trying, Cameras, Photographer

  7 Copy quote

• If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life. I mean people are going to say, You're crazy. Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Crazy, Mean

  9 Copy quote

• I think all families are creepy in a way.

  Diane Arbus

  Thinking, Creepy, Way

  Diane Arbus (2003). “Diane Arbus: revelations”, Random House (NY)

  11 Copy quote

• There are an awful lot of people in the world and it's going to be terribly hard to photograph all of them... It was my teacher Lisette Model who finally made it clear to me that the more specific you are, the more general it will be.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Teacher, People

  7 Copy quote

• ...I would never choose a subject for what it means to me. I choose a subject and then what I feel about it, what it means, begins to unfold.

  Diane Arbus

  Mean, Photographer, Feels

  6 Copy quote

• I used to have this notion when I was a kid that the minute you said anything, it was no longer true. Of course it would have driven me crazy very rapidly if I hadn't dropped it, but there's something similar in what I'm trying to say. That once it's been done, you want to go someplace else. There's just some sense of straining.

  Diane Arbus

  Crazy, Kids, Trying

  9 Copy quote

• ... I must begin at whatever pace is possible, to work on the book of my own that i vaguely keep assuming lies at the end of the rainbow. It is after all my rainbow and if I don't do it no one else will...Survival is the secret so you really can't afford to doubt yourself for long because you are all you've got. The only thing to do is to go the limit with it. Exceed.

  Diane Arbus

  Lying, Book, Long

  9 Copy quote

• It gets to seem as if way back in the Garden of Eden after the fall, Adam and Eve had begged the Lord to forgive them and He, in his boundless exasperation, had said, "All right, then. Stay. Stay in the Garden. Get civilized. Procreate. Muck it up." And they did.

  Diane Arbus

  Fall, Garden, Eden

  Diane Arbus (2003). “Diane Arbus: revelations”, Random House (NY)

  17 Copy quote

Page 2 of 3

First

← Prev

1

2

3

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin