Top 37 Quotes & Sayings by Saul Leiter

There are the things that are out in the open, and there are the things that are hidden. The real world has more to do with what is hidden.

In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music, and to paint when I feel like it.

Sometimes I'm amazed by how much you can do as a photographer.

Photography is about finding things. And painting is different - it's about making something.

A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person.

What makes anyone think that I'm any good?

I've never been overwhelmed with a desire to become famous. It's not that I didn't want to have my work appreciated, but for some reason - maybe it's because my father disapproved of almost everything I did - in some secret place in my being was a desire to avoid success.

When I am listening to Vivaldi or Japanese music or making spaghetti at 3 in the morning and realize that I don't have the proper sauce for it, fame is of no use.

I like it when one is not certain what one sees. When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.

I'm sometimes mystified by people who keep diaries. I never thought of my existence as being that important.

My brothers were rabbis. My grandfather was a rabbi.

My family was very unhappy about my becoming a photographer - profoundly and deeply unhappy.

Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learned to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.

I may be old-fashioned. But I believe there is such a thing as a search for beauty - a delight in the nice things in the world. And I don't think one should have to apologise for it.

I like the Zen artists: they'd do some work, and then they'd stop for a while.

I am not immersed in self-admiration.

My father thought photography was done by lowlifes.

I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way.

I have been told that some of my photographs maybe indicate that I am a painter.

I leave these speculations to others. It’s quite possible that my work represents a search for beauty in the most prosaic and ordinary places. One doesn’t have to be in some faraway dreamland in order to find beauty.

If I’d only known which [photographs] would be very good and liked, I wouldn’t have had to do all the thousands of others.

The important thing in life is not what you get, but what you throw out.

I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learned to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.

I started out as a fashion photographer. One cannot say that I was successful but there was enough work to keep me busy. I collaborated with Harper's Bazaar and other magazines. I was constantly aware that those who hired me would have preferred to work with a star such as Avedon. But it didn't matter. I had work and I made a living. At the same time, I took my own photographs. Strangely enough, I knew exactly what I wanted and what I liked.

I think I’ve said this before many times—that photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you had never paid any attention to. And as you photograph, one of the benefits is that the world becomes a much richer, juicier, visual place. Sometimes it is almost unbearable — it is too interesting. And it isn’t always just the photos you take that matters. It is looking at the world and seeing things that you never photograph that could be photographs if you had the energy to keep taking pictures every second of your life.

In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music and to paint when I feel like it.

I go out to take a walk, I see something, I take a picture. I take photographs. I have avoided profound explanations of what I do.

Max Kozloff said to me one day, ‘You’re not really a photographer. You do photography, but you do it for your own purposes – your purposes are not the same as others’. I’m not quite sure what he meant, but I like that. I like the way he put it.

I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities.

There are the things that are out in the open and then there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden, maybe. You think?

I have a deep-seated distrust and even contempt for people who are driven by ambition to conquer the world … those who cannot control themselves and produce vast amounts of crap that no one cares about. I find it unattractive. I like the Zen artists: they’d do some work, and then they’d stop for a while.

I must admit that I am not a member of the ugly school. I have a great regard for certain notions of beauty even though to some it is an old fashioned idea. Some photographers think that by taking pictures of human misery, they are addressing a serious problem. I do not think that misery is more profound than happiness.

Photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you'd never paid attention to.

When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.

I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera.

I admired a tremendous number of photographers, but for some reason I arrived at a point of view of my own.

Seeing is a neglected enterprise.