Gordon Parks Quotations

So I went to Chicago in 1940, I think, '41, and the photographs that I made there, aside from fashion, were things that I was trying to express in a social conscious way.

You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery.

But I was very disappointed that I didn't get a chance to go overseas with that group, might not have gotten back but I wanted very much to go because there's not much of a record of the exploits of the first Negro fighter group.

Use anger to emotionalize whatever thing you intend to do in life - being a painter, a poet or a photographer

I was there less than a year before I was assigned to the Paris bureau. I spent two years there and, in fact, before I even went on the staff I was sent to Europe to do assignments which they wouldn't normally do for a young photographer just starting out.

I've been with Life now for seventeen years and I have written several articles for them and will be doing more writing and do at least two assignments a year besides my writing.

Washington, D.C. in 1942 was not the easiest place in the world for a Negro to get along.

Success can be wracking and reproachful, to you and those close to you. It can entangle you with legends that are consuming and all but impossible to live up to.

I had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil - along with the evil of racism - with a camera.

And now, I feel at 85, I really feel that I'm just ready to start.