Quotes from Margaret Bourke-White

Work to me is a sacred thing.

The beauty of the past belongs to the past.

I have always thought that if I could turn back the pages of history and photograph one man, my choice would be Moses.

A kind of golden hour one remembers for a life time... Everything was touched with magic.

Life is beating against the school windows. You must quickly open the doors and go out to learn that no door must be locked against you.

If you banish fear nothing terribly bad can happen to you.

A book, while it is being written, has an intense life of its own which you share.

I love to write out of doors and sleep out of doors, too. If I sleep under the open sky it becomes part of the writing experience, part of my insulation from the world.

If anyone gets in my way when I'm making a picture, I become irrational. I'm never sure what I am going to do, or sometimes even aware of what I do-only that I want that picture.

War makes its own morals.

I was to discover that the quest for human understanding is a lifetime one that has no end in sight.

Usually I object when someone makes over-much of men's work versus women's work, for I think it is the excellence of the results which counts.

Work is something you can count on, a trusted, lifelong friend who never deserts you.

The element of discovery is very important. I don't repeat myself well. I want and need that stimulus of walking forward from one new world to another.

Even while you're in dead earnest about your work, you must approach it with a feeling of freedom and joy; you must be loose-jointed, like a relaxed athlete.

Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand.

The beauty of the past belongs to the past.

The very secret of life for me, I believed, was to maintain in the midst of rushing events an inner tranquility.

The element of discovery is very important. I don't repeat myself well. I want and need that stimulus of walking forward from one new world to another.

Nothing attracts me like a closed door. I cannot let my camera rest until I have pried it open.

I was to discover that the quest for human understanding is a lifetime one that has no end in sight.