I don’t think my work does reflect my nationality – I don’t like the idea of nationalism.

I’m never shocked, I’m not the shockable type!

I’m not political and I don’t judge.

London changes because of money. It’s real estate. If they can build some offices or expensive apartments they will, it’s money that changes everything in a city.

I left school on my 15th birthday.

My paintings are rubbish.

You adapt to who you’re photographing.

Instead of putting someone in prison for being a hooligan, give him a choice. He may have beaten someone up and he’s got eight years, but tell him you can do eight years inside or...

Botticelli would have made a very good fashion photographer. He did eight heads instead of seven heads in a body, which is fashion illustration.

I hate men who are in touch with their feminine side.

I hate being so nostalgic about the Sixties.

If something becomes old-fashioned, it was no good to start with. Think about it. Michelangelo is not old-fashioned.

I’ve always tried to do pictures that don’t date.

I always go for simplicity.

I like change. There’s something Buddhist about it – continuous change is wonderful.

The only thing they can’t teach you at art school is art.

You have to kind of be invisible when you photograph children, so you use a longer lens.

Rockers are the nicest people to photograph. They have no inhibitions.

I always look at people and think how I would cast them.

I have always wanted to live in the present and never the past.

I have never met an ugly woman.

In France they don’t think I’m difficult.

I’ve been used by women all my life, fortunately.

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...

I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked.

Every man who is high up loves to think that he has done it all himself; and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that.

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...

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 just thought it was magic that you could stick a bit of paper in some coffee-type liquid and a picture comes out.

If I have any sexist feelings they are aimed at men: I hate manly men.

It always amazes me when people ask you to do something and then tell you how to do it.

I’ve had some weird experiences.

I never tried to revolutionise photography; I just do what I do and keep my fingers crossed that people will like it.

Sometimes I still can’t believe my luck.

Everyone gets old – there’s nothing you can do about it.

All my ex-girlfriends or wives are all kind of great friends and I’ve never understood somebody who can live with somebody for five or six years and then not like them.

Girls are more attractive to me than dresses.

I could develop a picture by the time I was 12.

I sort of fall in love with them when I’m photographing them – men and women.

The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading.

In New York, everyone’s desperate for success, desperate for money and desperate to be accepted, but in London they’re more laid back about things like that.

It’s only a few nutcases who do art for themselves, like Van Gogh.

I’ve never been anti-women.

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...

I was a terrible father. The most I ever did for my children was to teach them chess. At least they got that.

Good shoes are important. I wear English brogues in a wide fitting. They last me years.

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.

You can’t really copy what I do because I don’t do anything.

I did painting before I did photography.