Quotes from Martin Parr

You can easily take photographs at a wedding - no one would question it. But funerals are different.

I am kept awake by the list of possibilities for shooting more photos and deciding what I must prioritise next.

Photographers never want to talk about the fact that they may well be in decline. It's the greatest taboo subject of all.

When I first started learning how to take photographs, you had to spend the first six months figuring out what an f-stop was. Now you just go and take pictures.

The idea of England in decline is very attractive.

Dictators are interesting, no?

For those aspiring to make a living from travel photography, it's a sad fact that the boring shots are the shots that are going to make you money.

With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist.

I toyed with the notion of being an actor, and am so glad that this whim did not go any further.

I love curating, because I'm lucky and privileged that I have a platform and I can share my discoveries with other people.

Filming is always a challenge because I'm not used to it. But I approach it head-on. I'm not technically brilliant, but it's the spirit that counts.

I try to photograph my own and society's hypocrisy.

Criticism is hypocrisy; society is hypocrisy. I'm a tourist. I'm a consumer. I do the things that I photograph and can be criticized of.

My profile is bigger in Europe than it is in the U.K.

Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.

Wealthy people have not disappeared, they are just not so willing to show off their wealth.

Margaret Thatcher was very good for the arts in so far as it gave people a real focus for something to be against.

I am not as cross about Thatcher now as I was in the '80s. Begrudgingly, I can see that some of her policies helped modernise Britain.

Modern technology has taken the angst out of achieving the perfect shot. For me, the only thing that counts is the idea behind the image: what you want to see and what you're trying to say. The idea is crucial. You have to think of something you want to say and expand upon it.

When I fly British Airways, I can't help but read the free Daily Mail, which makes me glad I am leaving the country.

When someone says to you, 'Oh, I don't take a good picture,' what they mean is they haven't come to terms with how they look. They take a fine picture, it's just that their image of how they think they look is not in touch with the reality.

I am away so much, so I rarely see live TV, but I use iPlayer to catch programmes.

The ability for us to laugh at ourselves is Britain's saving grace.

As we travel around Britain, I am convinced most of us cannot really appreciate what we are seeing. We take too much for granted, because it is all so familiar.