Saul Leiter

In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music, and to paint when I feel like it.

A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person.

Sometimes I'm amazed by how much you can do as a photographer.

I like it when one is not certain what one sees. When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.

Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learned to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.

I have been told that some of my photographs maybe indicate that I am a painter.

I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way.

I'm sometimes mystified by people who keep diaries. I never thought of my existence as being that important.

Photography is about finding things. And painting is different - it's about making something.

I may be old-fashioned. But I believe there is such a thing as a search for beauty - a delight in the nice things in the world. And I don't think one should have to apologise for it.

My family was very unhappy about my becoming a photographer - profoundly and deeply unhappy.

I've never been overwhelmed with a desire to become famous. It's not that I didn't want to have my work appreciated, but for some reason - maybe it's because my father disapproved of almost everything I did - in some secret place in my being was a desire to avoid success.