Top 70 David Bailey Quotes

I have never met an ugly woman.

People want security in this insecure world.

If something becomes old-fashioned, it was no good to start with. Think about it. Michelangelo is not old-fashioned.

Photography is more about money now but then so are most things.

I like change. There’s something Buddhist about it – continuous change is wonderful.

I don’t think global warming is to do with us, I think it’s a natural circle. I don’t think a few Ferraris make that much difference.

I left school on my 15th birthday.

All pictures are unnatural. All pictures are sad because they’re about dead people. Paintings you don’t think of in a special time or with a specific event. With photos I always think I’m looking at something dead.

I used to love the ’20s.

My friends are all megalomaniacs – from Damien Hirst to Jack Nicholson – all of them.

I sort of fall in love with them when I’m photographing them – men and women.

Girls are more attractive to me than dresses.

Nothing wrong with retouching – nothing new about retouching.

I won’t do advertising if they bring a layout and say, ‘This is what we want to do,’ because anybody can do that; it’s not interesting. They’ve got digital and the computer; it’s not taking pictures, it’s not magic – it’s a picture done by committee.

Instead of putting someone in prison for being a hooligan, give him a choice. He may have beaten someone up and he’s got eight years, but tell him you can do eight years inside or spend five years in the Army. Put him in the Parachute Regiment, they’d soon sort him out.

In ’73 I photographed the cannibals in New Guinea. They treated me OK but they didn’t make you feel relaxed… I managed to escape unscathed though, I’m pretty good at that.

Everyone gets old – there’s nothing you can do about it.

I am not responsible for all the journalists in the past that have told lies.

I’m never shocked, I’m not the shockable type!

In a way, a man’s body is more beautiful than a woman’s.

I always look at people and think how I would cast them.

Rather than knowing more, I think I’ve got more open-minded.

Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don’t know if you’re getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they’re in.

I always go for simplicity.

When I stop working, I go out and start working again. Most people paint a picture, or whatever they do, and go home. For me, it has to be continuous.

I was ten when I got my first serious beating. It was rough.

I’m not political and I don’t judge.

A positive attitude can really make dreams come true – it did for me.

I was dyslexic, so I was put in the silly class at school.

My father was a tailor, my mother a machinist.

I don’t feel very optimistic in London.

Fashion often starts off beautiful and becomes ugly, whereas art starts off ugly sometimes and becomes beautiful.

Rockers are the nicest people to photograph. They have no inhibitions.

I had a terrible time with feminists in the Seventies. They hated me, those women. I think they hated everything.

My exploits are nothing now to the average person.

I don’t really like the term ‘artist.’ I’m not sure what it means. It’s a bit like ‘love.’

Journalists never make it clear when you are joking.

I hate being so nostalgic about the Sixties.

I hate men who are in touch with their feminine side.

London changes because of money. It’s real estate. If they can build some offices or expensive apartments they will, it’s money that changes everything in a city.

Fortunately I didn’t get educated because if I’d got educated I’d be an educated fool now.

I’ve always tried to do pictures that don’t date.

Good shoes are important. I wear English brogues in a wide fitting. They last me years.

When I die I want to go to Vogue.

If you’re curious, London’s an amazing place.

Being dyslexic, I was told that I was an idiot all the time.

Botticelli would have made a very good fashion photographer. He did eight heads instead of seven heads in a body, which is fashion illustration.

If I have any sexist feelings they are aimed at men: I hate manly men.

I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked.

Being handsome wasn’t much of a burden. It worked for me.

I’ve been used by women all my life, fortunately.

I could develop a picture by the time I was 12.

Sometimes I still can’t believe my luck.

I am mad about my wife.

The only thing approaching art in a movie is the script.

I did painting before I did photography.

I suppose because my work was so popular people didn’t really look at it.

The earth has a life of its own.

I’ve had some weird experiences.

It’s only a few nutcases who do art for themselves, like Van Gogh.

The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading.

I guess I’m the last of the Cockneys.

I’ve never been anti-women.

I’m not really one for regrets.

In France they don’t think I’m difficult.

The first half of the 20th century belongs to Picasso, and the second half is about photography. They said digital would kill photography because everyone can do it, but they said that about the box brownie in 1885 when it came out. It makes photography interesting because everyone thinks they can take a picture.

I didn’t try and do fashion pictures. I tried to do portraits of girls wearing dresses.

I don’t think my work does reflect my nationality – I don’t like the idea of nationalism.

In New York, everyone’s desperate for success, desperate for money and desperate to be accepted, but in London they’re more laid back about things like that.

I don’t think it matters where I came from any more.