Top 25 Robert Mapplethorpe Quotes

Beauty and the devil are the same thing.

I’m not photographing anything naked these days. I haven’t been concentrating on bodies recently.

People don’t have time to wait for somebody to paint their portraits anymore. The money is in photography.

You’re never going to get anywhere in life if you don’t live up to your obligations.

The photographs that are art have to be separated from the rest – then preserved.

I’m not a photojournalist.

I just hope I can live long enough to see the fame.

I’ve never lied. I think I’ve lived a moral life.

I wish I could be elegant.

I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today’s existence.

I am obsessed with beauty. I want everything to be perfect, and of course it isn’t. And that’s a tough place to be because you’re never satisfied.

I always thought I was good. That’s why it was so frustrating when other people didn’t agree.

My father wants me to be like my brother, but I can’t be.

This AIDS stuff is pretty scary. I hope I don’t get it.

I would never have done what I’d done if I’d considered my father as somebody I wanted to please.

Just because I was out at the bars all the time didn’t mean I wasn’t looking for someone to love.

The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.

If I have to change my lifestyle, I don’t want to live.

I don’t believe in dogmas and theologies. I just believe in being a good person.

To make pictures big is to make them more powerful.

I don’t know why my pictures come out looking so good. I just don’t get it.

If I am at a party, I want to be at the party. Too many photographers use the camera to avoid participating in things. They become professional observers.

When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God.

I see things like they’ve never been seen before. Art is an accurate statement of the time in which it is made.

I don’t think any collector knows his true motivation.