Ryan McGinley Quotes

Film for me became how I related to everything else.

To hear people saying, 'The music you are doing has really touched my life and it's moved me in a lot of ways. It's helped me get through some tough times.' That's the best compliment that you could get.

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.

You must photograph where you are involved; where you are overwhelmed by what you see before you; where you hold your breath while releasing the shutter, not because you are afraid of jarring the camera, but because you are seeing with your guts wide open to the sweet pain of an image that is part of your life.

It was deeply interesting to observe my mother closely and to draw her. During those last months, she wasn't speaking much, if at all, and it was a way for me to be with her. It felt very natural.

I'm doing 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'... It was a book I read when I was younger, and it just changed my life, and I just wanted to be a part of it.

When I went to see certain shows when I was a kid, they changed my life. They made me tap into that place inside myself that I was unable to get to, so music is that tool, that bridge, and that's the kind of music I'm interested in making.

It is important to know that what I do is not artistic. I am just a film-maker. I live how I live and I do what I do, which is recording moments of my life as I move ahead. And I do it because I am compelled to. Necessity, not artistry, is the true line you can follow in my life and work.

It's very intimate. There are certain moments where it feels like it's just you and the lens. It's something that has been a very stable, consistent thing in my life.

I make videos about people's stories in a way that is human.

I'm really taken by the fact that my photographs live on somebody's wall.

I found that the camera was a comforting companion. It opened up new worlds, and gave me access to people's most intimate moments. I discovered the privilege of seeing life in all its complexity, the thrill of learning something new every day. When I was behind a camera, it was the only place in the world I wanted to be.

Often people ask what I'm photographing, which is a hard question to answer. And the best what I've come up with is I just say: Life today.

The best way to truly understand narrative art is to experience it.

To touch somebody’s heart with design.

I think I came alive when I started photography.

Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.

Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That's what music is to me.” – Janis Joplin

I do think that music videos have a huge impact on the way you listen to music.

I will rememeber you. Will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by and don't forget all your memories.

the art of reading hardly differs from the art of writing, in that its most intense pleasures and pains must remains private, and cannot be communicated to others.

I'm myself - knowing I'm doing a documentary and speaking with the people, telling them I have a bed, that I can eat every day, but I would like to speak to you. And they really gave me wonderful answers. We got along very well without trying to make me look like I'm what I'm not.

The music we play is kind of hard to explain. It's music that we really feel.

I make films for myself, first and foremost, just because it is such a personal experience, and it's something I really have to want to do and feel connected to.

Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.