Quotes from Annie Leibovitz

As fantastic as it is to have 'Vogue' and 'Vanity Fair' as places to work, I don't often get to shoot the kind of things I like to photograph in the way I like to photograph.

The pictures of my family were designed to be on a family wall, they were supposed to be together. It was supposed to copy my mother's wall in her house.

I can't stand the word 'celebrity.' It's such a brash word.

I've never liked the word 'celebrity.' I like to photograph people who are good at what they do.

There were some advantages to being a woman photographer. I think women have more empathy with the subject.

I admired the work of photographers like Beaton, Penn, and Avedon as much as I respected the grittier photographers such as Robert Frank. But in the same way that I had to find my own way of reportage, I had to find my own form of glamour.

I love photography. And I just eat it up. I feel like I'm an encyclopedia, you know, inside.

I'm a huge, huge fan of photography. I have a small photography collection. As soon as I started to make some money, I bought my very first photograph: an Henri Cartier-Bresson. Then I bought a Robert Frank.

When I take a picture I take 10 percent of what I see.

I still need the camera because it is the only reason anyone is talking to me.

Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter.

I'm more interested in being good than being famous.

There must be a reason why photographers are not very good at verbal communication. I think we get lazy.

When you involve people, they come out, you see them, you get to see their sense of humor.

When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I'd like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph.

I was out there with the White House press squad, and after his helicopter took off, and the carpet rolled up...This wasn't a photograph that others were taking, but I continued to take pictures.

No one ever thought Clint Eastwood was funny, but he was.

My lens of choice was always the 35 mm. It was more environmental. You can't come in closer with the 35 mm.

As soon as you put something to bed like the 'Women' book, you're never finished. There were portraits of people that I wanted to photograph - it's an endless subject.

I shoot a little bit, maybe two rolls, medium format, which is 20 pictures, and if it's not working, I change the position.

If it makes you cry, it goes in the show.

It's a heavy weight, the camera. Now we have modern and lightweight, small plastic cameras, but in the '70s they were heavy metal.

My body was so instrumental to how I took pictures: it was practically a dance. I used to use my legs a lot; now I'm a little more sedentary.

No one ever thought Clint Eastwood was funny, but he was.