Mary Ellen Mark Quotes

The way we describe our world shows how we think of our world. How we think of our world governs how we interpret our world. How we interpret our world directs how we participate in the world. How we participate in the world shapes the world.

I just can't help but see things differently.

I think perspective is a necessary, amazing thing.

A man's life is colored by the dye of his imagination.

I think everybody starts out by seeing a few works of art and wanting to do something like them. You want to understand what you see, what is there, and you try to make a picture out of it. Later you realize that you can't represent reality at all - that what you make represents nothing but itself, and therefore is itself reality.

Whatever you describe to another person is also a revelation of who you are and who you think you are. You can not describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything.

Poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time.

It all depends on the way you look at it. The point of view is everything in this world.

I think we all see the world from our own little unique bubble.

How you imagine the world determines how you live in it.

Draw a line; draw a line that pleases you. And remember that it is not the artist's role to copy the outlines of things but to create a world of his own lines on paper." (pp.28-29)

We can never be quite clear whether we are referring to the world as it is or to the world as we see it.

The self is merely the lens through which we see others and the world.

Judgment means that you view the world as you are, rather than as it is.

In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.

I think the world is like a great mirror, and reflects our lives just as we ourselves look upon it.

From what I could see, the hardwood was just fine. Then again, I'd just see a windmill and an open sky, too, never feeling the need to conquer either. You think it's all obvious and straightforward, this world. But really, it's all in who is doing the looking.

The world you see is less of an indication about the world and more of an indication about your seeing.

My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.

One person's magical thinking is another person's cynicism.

I think if you're lucky enough to find a voice in whatever you do, that voice will come sneaking out no matter what.

How do you stand out? Just find your point-of-view.

Perspective - Use It or Lose It. If you turned to this page, you're forgetting that what is going on around you is not reality. Think about that.

Everybody is completely different. I think there is no formula for filmmaking. Everybody finds their own way of doing things.

None of us see the world as it is but as we are, as our frames of reference, or maps, define the territory.