William Klein

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 didn't have to earn a living somehow, I would never have taken a fashion photograph in my life.

I find it satisfying that what I've done in photography has had so much influence in how people take photographs and what they look at and how they look at things.

I thought it would be good not to hide the fact that you're taking a photograph, and have people react and come in close and also make a commentary on what's being photographed: 'This is a photo, this is my point of view.'

People didn't object to me taking their photo. It was something everybody thought was their due: to be King for a Day, win the lottery and be photographed.

What's very funny is when you see amateurs filming something, they do some things no professionals would dare to do. They instinctively do things that are very avant-garde and useful.

I like dark humor. I think the world is very funny and tragic, and my photographs are basically dark Jewish humor.

I had an experience that was kind of backward. Instead of thinking that photography was a step down, it brought me a step up, to transpose and modify things.

My grandfather and his wife came to America at the end of the 19th century from Hungary. Everyone started out on the Lower East Side. They became embourgeoise and would move to the Upper West Side. Then, if they'd make money, they'd move to Park Avenue. Their kids would become artists and move down to the Lower East Side and the Village.

My father was convinced that America was the greatest place in the world. I'm afraid I didn't have the family I would have dreamed of.

I didn't really know who Cassius Clay was. I just wanted to show America through a heavyweight championship fight. Ever since my childhood, I'd been fascinated by the way the whole country becomes polarised around this event.

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.