I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do—that was one of my favorite things about it—and when I first did it, I felt perverse.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

If my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better I should not have come.