Quotes by
Robert Mapplethorpe

I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before.

When I have sex with someone I forget who I am. For a minute I even forget I’m human. It’s the same thing when I’m behind a camera. I forget I exist.

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

I was a Catholic boy, I went to church every Sunday. A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child. It still shows in how I arrange things. It's always little altars.

If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.

In the end, photography is the perfect way to make a sculpture.

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.

"...My whole point is to transcend the subject.{}...Go beyond the subject somehow, so that the composition, the lighting, all around, reaches a certain point of perfection. That's what IÕm doing. Whether it's a cock or a flower, I'm looking at it in the same way. {}...in my own way, with my own eyes. It's different from other people's, otherwise I wouldn't be having a show at the Whitney.

I like to look at pictures, all kinds. And all those things you absorb come out subconsciously one way or another. You'll be taking photographs and suddenly know that you have resources from having looked at a lot of them before. There is no way you can avoid this. But this kind of subconscious influence is good, and it certainly can work for one. In fact, the more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.

With photography, you zero in; you put a lot of energy into short moments, and then you go on to the next thing.

I never liked photography. Not for the sake of photography. I like the object. I like the photographs when you hold them in your hand.

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

I think that was a great advantage to go into photography not knowing much about it. Not thinking. I think one of the problems with many photographers today is that they never see for themselves, but just like everybody else.