Quotes from David Bailey

I used to love the '20s.

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.

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

Anybody can be a great photographer if they zoom in enough on what they love.

Instead of putting someone in prison for being a hooligan, give him a choice. He may have beaten someone up and he's got eight years, but tell him you can do eight years inside or spend five years in the Army. Put him in the Parachute Regiment, they'd soon sort him out.

I'm not really one for regrets.

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

I love learning new techniques.

It is a sign of a dull nature to occupy oneself deeply in matters that concern the body; for instance, to be over much occupied about exercise, about eating and drinking, about easing oneself, about sexual intercourse.

I was dyslexic, so I was put in the silly class at school.

I'm not a philosopher, I'm just a simple boy from East Ham.

People want security in this insecure world.

I hate being so nostalgic about the Sixties.

My friends are all megalomaniacs - from Damien Hirst to Jack Nicholson - all of them.

In '73 I photographed the cannibals in New Guinea. They treated me OK but they didn't make you feel relaxed... I managed to escape unscathed though, I'm pretty good at that.

Being trendy is dangerous. I've never been trendy, which is why I've never really fallen out of favour.

The skull is nature's sculpture.

Journalists never make it clear when you are joking.

I am not responsible for all the journalists in the past that have told lies.

I'm not political and I don't judge.

Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in.

In New York, everyone's desperate for success, desperate for money and desperate to be accepted, but in London they're more laid back about things like that.

I sort of fall in love with them when I'm photographing them - men and women.

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.