Saul Leiter Quotes

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've noticed that women often respond to him in this way - with an unthreatened openness. He generally likes women and you can see this in his photographs. There is nothing aggressive, prurient, or objectifying about them. Their sensuality is theirs alone. It never seems imposed.

Soames was a beautiful and striking woman, tall and lithe and, from the photographs Ive seen of her, feline. Saul's photographs of her over the years catch her in all her complex dimensions: playful, erotic, contemplative, ironic, and eccentric by turns. She was by all accounts charismatic, and was profoundly curious and interested in people. Friends, both men and women, often confided their deepest secrets to her.

I handed over my recording device. He lifted it close to his mouth and spoke. This is what he said: "I took some photographs. I painted a few pictures, some of them are nice. Is this any reason for tormenting me? Digging with your ugly little shovels into the secret corridors of my brain? Rustling your miserable curiosity and tossing it in my face?" And then he laughed. "Why must you know? What empty wretchedness are you trying to fill? (Peals of laughter) Why? Dont you people have lives of your own? Or are you collection of bored and unfulfilled emptiness masquerading as humans?" He broke down in almost uncontrollable laughter-

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?

Life is about those who are hidden.