It's not about composition. It's the way you feel about how your objects should relate to each other. I've got lots of African statues and things, and the cleaner arranges them like soldiers, which drives me mad. So I have to rearrange them, and I must drive her mad, because I'm doing anarchy and she's doing military manoeuvres.
— David Bailey
I won't do advertising if they bring a layout and say, 'This is what we want to do,' because anybody can do that; it's not interesting. They've got digital and the computer; it's not taking pictures, it's not magic - it's a picture done by committee.
Good shoes are important. I wear English brogues in a wide fitting. They last me years.
John Parsons, the gay art director at 'Vogue,' really started my career.
I didn't know I was going to live for 50 years. It has come as a shock.
The skull is nature's sculpture.
I don't do proud.
The only thing approaching art in a movie is the script.
I used to love the '20s.
Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in.
I don't think global warming is to do with us, I think it's a natural circle. I don't think a few Ferraris make that much difference.
Journalists never make it clear when you are joking.
I'm never shocked, I'm not the shockable type!
You have to kind of be invisible when you photograph children, so you use a longer lens.
I don't see the point of photographing trees or rocks because they're there and anyone can photograph them if they're prepared to hang around and wait for the light.
When I stop working, I go out and start working again. Most people paint a picture, or whatever they do, and go home. For me, it has to be continuous.
Nothing wrong with retouching - nothing new about retouching.
The first half of the 20th century belongs to Picasso, and the second half is about photography. They said digital would kill photography because everyone can do it, but they said that about the box brownie in 1885 when it came out. It makes photography interesting because everyone thinks they can take a picture.
Kate Moss is the best thing since Jean Shrimpton, really.
I don't really like the term 'artist.' I'm not sure what it means. It's a bit like 'love.'
There's nothing wrong with being a fashion photographer, but it's a bit limited.
It's only a few nutcases who do art for themselves, like Van Gogh.
I love learning new techniques.
In '73 I photographed the cannibals in New Guinea. They treated me OK but they didn't make you feel relaxed... I managed to escape unscathed though, I'm pretty good at that.
I'm not mad about movies, there are too many people involved in the making of them, and they lack a definitive creative focus.
I don't like any sport except boxing and bull fighting.
I'm not really one for regrets.
The trouble with people like Tony Blair is they get confused, they think intelligence is education when they're two different things.
I am not responsible for all the journalists in the past that have told lies.
I don't think it matters where I came from any more.
Girls are more attractive to me than dresses.
Anybody can be a great photographer if they zoom in enough on what they love.
I always look at people and think how I would cast them.
I've always been a bit flip.
Botticelli would have made a very good fashion photographer. He did eight heads instead of seven heads in a body, which is fashion illustration.
If something becomes old-fashioned, it was no good to start with. Think about it. Michelangelo is not old-fashioned.
I think about death all the time. I know there's nothing out there, but I'm curious. There's a 300 billion-to-one chance that there might be an energy that goes somewhere else, but I doubt it.
It always amazes me when people ask you to do something and then tell you how to do it.
I'm an image-maker.
I'm not a philosopher, I'm just a simple boy from East Ham.
I didn't know a time when there wasn't a war because I spent all my time from the age of two or three to eight in a coal cellar really.
My father was a tailor, my mother a machinist.
The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading.
The earth has a life of its own.
My paintings are rubbish.
I have never met an ugly woman.
I don't think my work does reflect my nationality - I don't like the idea of nationalism.
Fashion often starts off beautiful and becomes ugly, whereas art starts off ugly sometimes and becomes beautiful.
In a way, a man's body is more beautiful than a woman's.
I love people for giving me their time. It's a privilege - I make the most of it.
