I was 24 years old at the time. I had no real notion of what photography was about. I had no training. By accident, I put a negative in an enlarger, and you can do many things with that negative.
— William Klein
I saw New York differently after being in Paris for a few years.
French photography was basically poetic, and mine was vulgar and brash and violent, except that there's never any violence in the photographs: it's only in the photographic style.
I think it's obscene. I don't know how you support the monarchy. How can you do that?
I always dreamt of becoming an artist in Paris. Thanks to the Army, it happened.
My way of living and working is that I'll do my thing. I went from one thing to another. That annoyed people. They didn't know how to categorize me.
If I look back, I think most of the things I did - the films, the books, the collaborations with these magazines - were mostly by accident.
Why did I take fashion photographs? I thought it was fun. And there was a lot of money.
Being an expatriate doesn't go down well in America.
I like the streets. I grew up in the streets.
Fashion had no interest for me. I would take photographs in the studio. I would go back home, and my wife would say, 'What is the fashion like for this season?' And I would say, 'I have no idea.'
My father was like Willy Loman, you know: he never really made it - and he was from a family where there were people who had made it.
