In response to a person who inquired as to which camera he used, Steichen said,
“Photographers have not yet exhausted the possibilities of the box camera.”
— Edward Steichen
A quote of obvious value often attributed to Goethe and sometimes to W. H. Murray but actually attributable to neither…
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
“Rehabilitated? Well now, let me see. You know, I don’t have any idea what that means… I know what you think it means, sonny. To me, it’s just a made-up word, a politician’s word so that young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie and have a job.”
— Ellis Boyd Redding (fictional character by Stephen King, “The Shawshank Redemption”)
“The world’s curse is a man who’d rather be someplace else.”
— Old Jack Beechum (fictional character by Wendell Berry, “Farming: A Handbook”)
This quote is anonymous because I was so overcome by what she said I failed to get the little girl’s name who said it. We were in LaGrange to see a Conservancy film on the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. Some children were playing in the fountain, splashing, wading. There were three, two barefoot and one with cowboy boots who elected to stay at the rim, out of the water. After a bit there was a mild argument that “Cowboy Boots” ought to come in. She refused repeatedly. One of the waders looked up at “Cowboy Boots” and said, “I just don’t think you realize the funness of this.”
“They trust me — dumb fucks,” says Zuckerberg in one of his instant messages, first published by former Valleywag Nicholas Carlson at Silicon Alley Insider, and now confirmed by Zuckerberg himself in Jose Antonio Vargas’s New Yorker piece. Zuckerberg now tells Vargas, “I think I’ve grown and learned a lot since those instant messages.”
— Mark Zuckerberg
Franca told me this morning that Americans spend 4 ½ hours a day on Facebook. (I find that difficult to believe…) Though I was certain I never would I am at present using a private Facebook Page to correspond with members of the Advanced Photographers Seminar, held by Chip Simone.
“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.”
— Miller Williams
“Their eye is gimlet and true.”
— Sally Mann (on the website of The Do Good Fund, Inc.)
“With penetrating eyes: having eyes that seem to penetrate or pierce, or to notice everything. adj.”
— Encarta World English Dictionary, North American Edition
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I’m looking to surprise myself. That’s important to me. I know it’s out there, I just have to find it. I’m always looking for “something”. I don’t know when I am going to find it, but I’m sure I’m going to find it. I have to trust in this way of working.”
— Barry LeVa
“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.”
— President Andrew Shepherd (fictional character in the movie “The American President”)
“I sincerely believe that in the black community of artists, especially those of us dealing with abstraction, art has to go beyond the general notions of race, gender, nationalism. Things have evolved to the degree where there is a possibility of a new sensibility out there. We’re into a global aesthetic here, and anyone that doesn’t see that has a real old-fashioned way of thinking.”
— Jack Whitten