A positive attitude can really make dreams come true - it did for me.
David Bailey
The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading.
To get rich, you have to be making money while you're asleep.
Being handsome wasn't much of a burden. It worked for me.
The skull is nature's sculpture.
Sometimes I still can't believe my luck.
Being trendy is dangerous. I've never been trendy, which is why I've never really fallen out of favour.
It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.
Anybody can be a great photographer if they zoom in enough on what they love.
It is a sign of a dull nature to occupy oneself deeply in matters that concern the body; for instance, to be over much occupied about exercise, about eating and drinking, about easing oneself, about sexual intercourse.
You can't really copy what I do because I don't do anything.
If you're curious, London's an amazing place.
I always go for simplicity.
I've always been a bit flip.
I don't think it matters where I came from any more.
The only thing they can't teach you at art school is art.
Rockers are the nicest people to photograph. They have no inhibitions.
John Parsons, the gay art director at 'Vogue,' really started my career.
My father was a tailor, my mother a machinist.
Being dyslexic, I was told that I was an idiot all the time.
When I die I want to go to Vogue.
I know everything should be photographed. It helps me make sense of my existence.
I have never met an ugly woman.
I'm not a philosopher, I'm just a simple boy from East Ham.
I don't feel very optimistic in London.
I was surrounded by strong women so it had never even occurred to me that women were anything other than equal to men.
I was dyslexic, so I was put in the silly class at school.
The trouble with people like Tony Blair is they get confused, they think intelligence is education when they're two different things.
I could develop a picture by the time I was 12.
I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked.
If something becomes old-fashioned, it was no good to start with. Think about it. Michelangelo is not old-fashioned.
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.
I'm an image-maker.
If I have any sexist feelings they are aimed at men: I hate manly men.
My first influence obviously was Picasso.
Rather than knowing more, I think I've got more open-minded.
There's nothing wrong with being a fashion photographer, but it's a bit limited.
The only thing approaching art in a movie is the script.
I always look at people and think how I would cast them.
I was ten when I got my first serious beating. It was rough.
I've always tried to do pictures that don't date.
My exploits are nothing now to the average person.
You adapt to who you're photographing.
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.
All pictures are unnatural. All pictures are sad because they're about dead people. Paintings you don't think of in a special time or with a specific event. With photos I always think I'm looking at something dead.
All I could do at school was paint and draw and that was the only time I ever passed any exam. It was the only thing I ever got right at school.
I didn't know I was going to live for 50 years. It has come as a shock.
It's only a few nutcases who do art for themselves, like Van Gogh.
I didn't try and do fashion pictures. I tried to do portraits of girls wearing dresses.
I suppose because my work was so popular people didn't really look at it.
