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Diane Arbus

b: New York, New York, Mar 14, 1923

d: New York, New York, Jul 26, 1971

American. Photographer. Best know for photographs of "freaks" - midgets, giants, etc.

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A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw. It's just extraordinary that we should have been given these peculiarities. Something is ironic in the world and it has to do with the fact that what you intend never comes out like you intend it.

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 very perverse.

I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.

If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, ''I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life.'' I mean people are going to say, ''You're crazy.'' Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.

It gets to seem as if way back in the Garden of Eden after the Fall, Adam and Eve had begged the Lord to forgive them and He, in his boundless exasperation, had said, ''All right, then. Stay. Stay in the Garden. Get civilized. Procreate. Muck it up.'' And they did.

Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.

Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.

Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.

My favorite thing is to go where I have never gone.

Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.

These are characters in a fairy tale for grown-ups. Wouldn't it be lovely? Yes.