Diane Arbus Quotes, Thoughts and images

I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.

The world is full of fictional characters looking for their stories

Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.

Take pictures of what you fear.

Shoot for the secrets, develop for the surprises

I tend to think of the act of photographing, generally speaking, as an adventure. My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.

We've all got an identity. You can't avoid it. It's what's left when you take everything else away.

I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.

My favorite thing is to go where I've never been.

For me, the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture.

The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way.

Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.

Photography was a license to go wherever I wanted and to do what I wanted to do.

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

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

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

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

Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.

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

I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.

One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.

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

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

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

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

I mean, if you've ever spoken to someone with two heads, you know they know something you don't.

I think all families are creepy in a way.

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.

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

...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.

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