William Klein

I'm an outsider, I guess.

— William Klein

I like the streets. I grew up in the streets.

— William Klein

The best critics of America are Americans.

— William Klein

I like film. I'm old fashioned.

— William Klein

Don't have rules, taboos, or limits.

— William Klein

The English are very exotic to me.

— William Klein

I was a very clumsy Jewish kid.

— William Klein

I think it's obscene. I don't know how you support the monarchy. How can you do that?

— William Klein

I discovered that I could do whatever I wanted with a negative in a darkroom and an enlarger.

— William Klein

My complaint is that Americans drive me crazy, and the politics drive me crazy.

— William Klein

Being an expatriate doesn't go down well in America.

— William Klein

I saw New York differently after being in Paris for a few years.

— William Klein

Anybody who pretends to be objective isn't realistic.

— William Klein

What would please me most is to make photographs as incomprehensible as life.

— William Klein

As a kid, I wanted to be part of the Lost Generation who came to France.

— William Klein

Most of the other soldiers were older than me and sent money back to their families, so they were more prudent.

— William Klein

This is supposed to be the Big Apple, with neighborhoods where the houses are all good-looking and the skyscrapers and everything. But…

— William Klein

Fashion had no interest for me. I would take photographs in the studio. I would go back home, and my wife would…

— William Klein

Leger was not only the first artist I ever met but also the first pop artist, and he blew our minds.

— William Klein

What's very funny is when you see amateurs filming something, they do some things no professionals would dare to do. They instinctively…

— William Klein

When I made 'Polly Maggoo,' it was more or less the end of this collaboration with 'Vogue' because I made a caricature…

— William Klein

I like dark humor. I think the world is very funny and tragic, and my photographs are basically dark Jewish humor.

— William Klein

The kinetic quality of New York, the kids, dirt, madness - I tried to find a photographic style that would come close…

— William Klein

Sometimes, I'd take shots without aiming, just to see what happened. I'd rush into crowds - bang! bang! ... It must be…

— William Klein

I thought it would be a good idea to look at New York with this half-European, half-native eye and really do something…

— William Klein

In America, kids would go to college and get out and buy a second-hand car and go across the country and discover…

— William Klein

I was making a film on Muhammad Ali in 1964, and I went to Miami to film everything around the fight for…

— William Klein

I have always loved the amateur side of photography, automatic photographs, accidental photographs with uncentered compositions, heads cut off, whatever. I incite…

— William Klein

I'm known for fashion photographs, but fashion photographs were mostly a joke for me. In 'Vogue,' girls were playing at being duchesses,…

— William Klein

I like festivals of all kinds: in 1969, I made a film about the first Pan-African festival in Algiers, which celebrated the…

— William Klein

I didn't really know who Cassius Clay was. I just wanted to show America through a heavyweight championship fight. Ever since my…

— William Klein

I feel like I'm doing something that's worthwhile. I feel like I'm showing something other people haven't shown. I don't get to…

— William Klein

The New York book was a visual diary and it was also kind of personal newspaper. I wanted it to look like…

— William Klein

I wasn't part of any movement. I was working alone, following my instinct.

— William Klein

I think that Damien Hirst putting a shark in a bath of formaldehyde is nothing.

— William Klein

For my first book, 'New York,' I had one camera and two lenses. It was fotografia povera.

— William Klein

Why did I take fashion photographs? I thought it was fun. And there was a lot of money.

— William Klein

Fashion was more of a sideline for me. I did it for the money.

— William Klein

Photography led me to experiment in graphic work and, actually, painting.

— William Klein

I always dreamt of becoming an artist in Paris. Thanks to the Army, it happened.

— William Klein