Eve Arnold

What you need to be a good photographer is an overwhelming curiosity and a good digestion. Sometimes you feel blessed with curiosity, sometimes you feel cursed with it. ”

What drove me and kept me going over the decades? If I had to use a single word, it would be 'curiosity.' ”

I had in mind a long career. ”

I find going back through things sometimes exhilarating because I find things I didn't know I had, and sometimes it's very off putting because there are things I never quite finished, and there's nothing at all to do about it now. ”

If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. ”

It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument. ”

I love the idea I can go off with a single camera and a few rolls of film unencumbered... I was not interested in the illusion of reality, I wanted to get close to what was happening. ”

If you are careful with people, they will offer you part of themselves. That is the big secret. ”

I have been poor and I wanted to document poverty; I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth; I was interested in politics and I wanted to know how it affected our lives; I am a woman and I wanted to know about women. ”

Recording sessions were stimulating to photograph, because everything was in motion: the subject, the musicians, the technicians and the photographer. You needed fast reflexes to keep up with moving targets, and sensitivity and skill to get the pictures while keeping out of the performers' eyeline so as not to break their concentration. ”