Diane Arbus Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Diane Arbus

  Inspirational, Photography, Believe

  59 Copy quote

• A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

  Diane Arbus

  Inspirational, Photography, Philosophical

  66 Copy quote

• The world is full of fictional characters looking for their stories

  Diane Arbus

  Character, Stories, World

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

  68 Copy quote

• It's important to take bad pictures. It's the bad ones that have to do with what you've never done before. They can make you recognize something you hadn't seen in a way that will make you recognize it when you see it again.

  Diane Arbus

  Important, Done, Way

  59 Copy quote

• Shoot for the secrets, develop for the surprises

  Diane Arbus

  Secret, Surprise

  10 Copy quote

• Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.

  Diane Arbus

  Life, Motivational, Softball

  94 Copy quote

• Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, People, Tests

  Diane Arbus (1972)

  59 Copy quote

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

  Diane Arbus

  Inspirational, Photography, Night

  66 Copy quote

• Take pictures of what you fear.

  Diane Arbus

  Photographer

  44 Copy quote

• 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.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Adventure, Thinking

  "Arbus Speaks" by Hilton Als, www.newyorker.com. September 26, 2011.

  43 Copy quote

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

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Yoga, Knowledge

  16 Copy quote

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

  Diane Arbus

  Identity, Left

  35 Copy quote

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

  Diane Arbus

  Inspirational, Photography, Taken

  28 Copy quote

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

  Diane Arbus

  Life, Photography, Nature

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

  40 Copy quote

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

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Important, Photographer

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

  25 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. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw. It's just extraordinary that we should have been given these peculiarities. Something is ironic in the world and it has to do with the fact that what you intend never comes out like you intend it.

  Diane Arbus

  Should Have, People, Ironic

  48 Copy quote

• We stand on a precipice, then before a chasm, and as we wait it becomes higher, wider, deeper, but I am crazy enough to think it doesn't matter which way we leap because when we leap we will have learned to fly. Is that blasphemy or faith?

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Crazy, Thinking

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

  14 Copy quote

• Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.

  Diane Arbus

  Love, Witty, Understanding

  25 Copy quote

• I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself.

  Diane Arbus

  Mean Girls, Photography, Awkward

  46 Copy quote

• There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle.

  Diane Arbus

  Quality, Answers, Demand

  "The Subject of an Arbus" by Jessie Wender, www.newyorker.com. April 8, 2014.

  28 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 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

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

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Wanted, License

  31 Copy quote

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

  Diane Arbus

  Mean, Two, Knows

  8 Copy quote

• 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

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