Robert Doisneau

I don't photograph life as it is, but life as I would like it to be,

— Robert Doisneau

To suggest is to create; to describe is to destroy.

— Robert Doisneau

If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time.

— Robert Doisneau

I prefer my hesitations, my false paths, my stammering, to a preconceived idea.

— Robert Doisneau

I hate collectors, the ones who take something just for themselves.

— Robert Doisneau

Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly.

— Robert Doisneau

The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.

— Robert Doisneau

For a photographer, the first 70 years are a bit difficult, but after that things get better.

— Robert Doisneau

A photographer who made a picture from a splendid moment, an accidental pose of someone or a beautiful scenery, is the finder…

— Robert Doisneau

There are days when simply seeing feels like happiness itself…You feel so rich, the elation seems almost excessive and you want to…

— Robert Doisneau

When people talk to me about picture hunters, I very quietly laugh. I'm not a hunter of pictures, I'm a fisher of…

— Robert Doisneau

A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there-even if you put them end to end, they still only…

— Robert Doisneau

If you take photographs, dont speak, dont write, dont analyse yourself, and dont answer any questions.

— Robert Doisneau

When I first started to take photos Idpull the black cloth over my head and feel totally secure in the knowledge that…

— Robert Doisneau

The photographer must be absorbent, like a blotter, allow himself to be permeated by the poetic moment...His technique should be like an…

— Robert Doisneau

I don't usually give out advice or recipes, but you must let the person looking at the photograph go some of the…

— Robert Doisneau

Nowadays people's visual imagination is so much more sophisticated, so much more developed, particularly in young people, that now you can make…

— Robert Doisneau

Chance is the one thing you can't buy. You have to pay for it and you have to pay for it with…

— Robert Doisneau

You've got to struggle against the pollution of intelligence in order to become an animal with very sharp instincts - a sort…

— Robert Doisneau

You know, they always say that the photographer is a hunter of images. That is a flattering image, the idea of a…

— Robert Doisneau

I'm not a collector at heart. I'm never tormented by the longing to possess things. I'm quite happy with my pictures. I've…

— Robert Doisneau

A memory from my youth comes back to me. You go into the woods on a bike, with a girl. There is…

— Robert Doisneau

Some days the mere fact of seeing feels like perfect happiness... You feel so rich you long to share your jubilation with…

— Robert Doisneau

I like people for their weaknesses and faults. I get on well with ordinary people. We talk. We start with the weather,…

— Robert Doisneau

“The charm of a city, now we come to it, is not unlike the charm of flowers. It partly depends on seeing…

— Robert Doisneau

I would never have dared to photograph people like that. Lovers kissing in the street, those couples are rarely legitimate.

— Robert Doisneau

If you take photos, don't speak, don't write, don't analyze yourself, and don't answer any questions.

— Robert Doisneau

To freeze time, to hold on to youth, this business makes no sense. It's always time that wins in the end.

— Robert Doisneau

Photography is very subjective. Photography is not a document on which a report can be made. It is a subjective document. Photography…

— Robert Doisneau