David Bailey

The Sixties was a time of breaking down class barriers, although I think class still exists today in some areas. ”

I had a terrible time with feminists in the Seventies. They hated me, those women. I think they hated everything. ”

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

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. ”

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. ”

Being dyslexic, I was told that I was an idiot all the time. ”

I think about death all the time. I know there's nothing out there, but I'm curious. There's a 300 billion-to-one chance that there might be an energy that goes somewhere else, but I doubt it. ”

I'm not mad about movies, there are too many people involved in the making of them, and they lack a definitive creative focus. ”

The reason I did fashion was it was the only way to get paid to do anything creative. You couldn't support yourself as an 'artist' - I hate that word. The only way you could be 'arty' was as a fashion photographer, because it still had a certain amount of integrity involved. ”