A Quote by Diane Arbus

I mean, it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them. — © Diane Arbus
I mean, it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them.
I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.
Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe.
It was actually books that started to make those pockets of freedom, which I hadn't otherwise experienced. I do see them as talismans, as sacred objects. I see them as something that will protect me, I suppose, that will save me from things that I feel are threatening. I still think that; it doesn't change. It doesn't change, having money, being successful. So from the very first, if I was hurt in some way, then I would take a book -- which was very difficult for me to buy when I was little -- and I would go up into the hills, and that is how I would assuage my hurt.
There are people, of course, who profess to be libertarian Marxists. I believe they mean very well, and I even write in their periodicals; but I write very militantly that I regard Marxism as a very subtle form of what I would call the totalitarian ideology - all the more subtle because it professes to advance the notions of freedom.
I would never do a commercial for something that is embarrassing, and I think that people maybe have a different perspective on what is embarrassing or not. Some people think doing a Revlon hair commercial is really cool. To me, that's embarrassing, but World of Warcraft: not embarrassing, very cool.
I would never do a commercial for something that is embarrassing, and I think that people maybe have a different perspective on what is embarrassing or not. Some people think doing a Revlon hair commercial is really cool. To me, that's embarrassing, but World of Warcraft - not embarrassing, very cool.
I think reality television, unless it's inspirational, which it very rarely is, I think it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing state of affairs that we're in.
Nobody would take checks from Indians, nobody would give them any credit, and nobody would let them drink in the bars. There was a rudeness, a brusqueness, with which the Indians were treated constantly. At a very young age, that had entered my consciousness.
What really fueled me, and maybe infuriated me, is that nobody believed in me. Nobody. I don't even think I believe in myself. Part of what I was trying to do was to make the decision to go into business and find the guts to see it through. I was told that when I went in to see the bankers that I was supposed to be very muted, that I was supposed to blend in, that I was supposed to have the typical drab suit on.
Very few people really see things unless they've had someone in early life who made them look at things. And name them too. But the looking is primary, the focus.
Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed, and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them.
Nobody really knows who I am, where I came from, what's in my heart, why I believe in the things I believe, what I see behind the scenes and they don't see.
I guess I don't really know any other way to do it, it just feels like the natural way to do things for me. Like - if I'm writing a song - it has to have some sort of value. Or it only has some kind of value to me, if it's something really personal. It has to mean something to me. I guess it is a little uncomfortable, or it's a little embarrassing sometimes, to know that stuff that honest is out there. But, when I hand off the thing, when it's totally done and mastered and sent, I kinda feel like it doesn't belong to me anymore.
To all the little girls out there, I would tell them to really appreciate what their parents do for them. And also to truly believe in their dream. If they truly believe that they're capable, things will happen for them - as long as they put in the work, of course.
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.
Embarrassed journalists ask me embarrassing questions, and they get embarrassing answers, and then hand out embarrassing stories to the embarrassing editors, who put them to the front pages of newspapers. When is this going to end?
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