Quotes by David Bailey

"Rockers are the nicest people to photograph. They have no inhibitions."

"I don't think my work does reflect my nationality - I don't like the idea of nationalism."

"Being trendy is dangerous. I've never been trendy, which is why I've never really fallen out of favour."

"I didn't try and do fashion pictures. I tried to do portraits of girls wearing dresses."

"You can't really copy what I do because I don't do anything."

"I hate being so nostalgic about the Sixties."

"Girls are more attractive to me than dresses."

"I don't think global warming is to do with us, I think it's a natural circle. I don't think a few Ferraris make that much difference."

"I always go for simplicity."

"All I could do at school was paint and draw and that was the only time I ever passed any exam. It was the only thing I ever got right at school."

"I never tried to revolutionise photography; I just do what I do and keep my fingers crossed that people will like it."

"It's not about composition. It's the way you feel about how your objects should relate to each other. I've got lots of African statues and things, and the cleaner arranges them like soldiers, which drives me mad. So I have to rearrange them, and I must drive her mad, because I'm doing anarchy and she's doing military manoeuvres."

"The first half of the 20th century belongs to Picasso, and the second half is about photography. They said digital would kill photography because everyone can do it, but they said that about the box brownie in 1885 when it came out. It makes photography interesting because everyone thinks they can take a picture."

"Anybody can be a great photographer if they zoom in enough on what they love."

"Being handsome wasn't much of a burden. It worked for me."

"It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary."

"All pictures are unnatural. All pictures are sad because they're about dead people. Paintings you don't think of in a special time or with a specific event. With photos I always think I'm looking at something dead."

"The skull is nature's sculpture."

"It is a sign of a dull nature to occupy oneself deeply in matters that concern the body for instance, to be over much occupied about exercise, about eating and drinking, about easing oneself, about sexual intercourse."

"I'm not mad about movies, there are too many people involved in the making of them, and they lack a definitive creative focus."