Quotes from Laurel Nakadate

It's always a problem - you've got to figure out a place to put your body. You've got to wake up in the morning and deal with the fact that you have this body to lug around.

I think it's a really good thing to put yourself in a situation where you feel really uncomfortable because I think things can come out of that discomfort.

I'm interested in that hybrid - the place between the real world and my imagination. There's a friction that's created between the things we imagine and the things that exist.

Death is sad, yes, but there are some great laughs you can find there.

Photography has saved my life, over and over again.

Every time I hear that somebody died I think of their body, on a steel table in a morgue somewhere. I think of how they can do nothing about it.

I'm always afraid going into strange places, but I also choose carefully and listen to my instincts. These were men I could trust. I'm a pretty good judge of crazy versus sad. I prefer sad.

Tenderness and lust are just immature little brothers of love. Yes of course it was lust... but I'm not sure how evolved or resolved that lust was.

What I love about photography is that nothing is really as it seems.

People want movies to be one thing or another; they want it be fact or fiction.

Sometimes it's good to get mad, sometimes it clarifies where we stand. I think that art has the ability to challenge and push, and that's great. That's better than great... it's necessary.

I believe that I am some sort of fiction writer and I'm using myself in my work because I'm the person I'm most convenient to use!

I've always seen my work as trying to make the connection with men who no one really spends time with.

I would always say I'm doing a video project. About dancing or birthday parties. Of course, the video becomes more than that. It goes deeper than that. But it's not a lie. It's a starting point.

I believe photography is about choosing to live, being brave. Looking is an act of courage. It's terrifying. It's possible to see too much, to witness things that we cannot hold.