Leiter Quotes & Sayings

I may be old-fashioned. But I believe there is such a thing as a search for beauty - a delight in the nice things in the world. And I don't think one should have to apologise for it. — Saul Leiter

I like starting. It's pretty cool. — Al Leiter

Photography is about finding things. And painting is different - it's about making something. — Saul Leiter

It's a very big mental game, all day leading up to warm-ups. You're not sure if your curveball will break, or will you be able to throw it over the plate? It's all negative thoughts going into the game. — Al Leiter

In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music, and to paint when I feel like it. — Saul Leiter

If I'd only known which [photographs] would be very good and liked, I wouldn't have had to do all the thousands of others. — Saul Leiter

The content of Saul Leiter's photographs arrives on a sort of delay: it takes a moment after the first glance to know what the picture is about. You don't so much see the image as let it dissolve into your consciousness, like a tablet in a glass of water. — Teju Cole

The pitcher setting up the batter. It's chess, and you play with it. — Al Leiter

ISIS, in some cases like Paris, may actually try to direct. But what it's really trying to do is inspire. So its directed activities are these inspired attacks. — Michael Leiter

I think the World Cup is going to be bigger than what a lot of people are anticipating. At this stage in my career, when there is an opportunity, albeit a small one, of being on the team, what a great way to possibly end my career. — Al Leiter

Even though there is neither much altruism nor equality in the world, there is almost universal endorsement of the values of altruism and equality - even, notoriously (and as Nietzsche seemed well aware), by those who are is worst enemies in practice. So Nietzsche's critique is that a culture in the grips of MPS [Morality in the Pejorative Sense], even without acting on MPS, poses the real obstacle to flourishing, because it teaches potential higher types to disvalue what would be most conductive to their creativity and value what is irrelevant or perhaps even hostile to it. — Brian Leiter

Announcers don't do enough of the cat-and-mouse strategy and all the work that goes into it. You watch a broadcast and guys get the pitches wrong. — Al Leiter

What makes anyone think that I'm any good? — Saul Leiter

I don't think bulk data collection was an enormous factor here, because generally, that deals with overseas calls to the United States. But what bulk data collection did was make the process more efficient. So there were no silver bullets there. — Michael Leiter

A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person. — Saul Leiter

I think I've said this before many times - that photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you had never paid any attention to. And as you photograph, one of the benefits is that the world becomes a much richer, juicier, visual place. Sometimes it is almost unbearable - it is too interesting. And it isn't always just the photos you take that matters. It is looking at the world and seeing things that you never photograph that could be photographs if you had the energy to keep taking pictures every second of your life. — Saul Leiter

I like the Zen artists: they'd do some work, and then they'd stop for a while. — Saul Leiter

Pitches are like pages of a book; they're so important. The chess game; how I set you up early, and how I'll do it differently later. — Al Leiter

I did not want to leave the Mets and I did not want to leave New York. — Al Leiter

I go out to take a walk, I see something, I take a picture. I take photographs. I have avoided profound explanations of what I do. — Saul Leiter

The Church in contemporary America does not need more strategies, steps, or keys to the Christian life. The Church needs truth, and more specifically, the great foundational truths of historical Christianity. — Charles Leiter

I'm sometimes mystified by people who keep diaries. I never thought of my existence as being that important. — Saul Leiter

She answered perfunctorily. She said that, of course, they had picked out the two gunmen, but had thought nothing of it when the man with the stick had gone to stand behind Bond's chair. They could not believe that anything would be attempted in the Casino itself. Directly Bond and Leiter had left to walk over to the hotel, she had telephoned Paris and told M.'s representative of the result of the game. She had had to speak guardedly and the agent had rung off without comment. She had been told to do this whatever the result. M. had asked for the information to be passed on to him personally at any time of the day or night. — Ian Fleming

I admired a tremendous number of photographers, but for some reason I arrived at a point of view of my own. — Saul Leiter

Seeing is a neglected enterprise. — Saul Leiter

I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. — Saul Leiter

I look at this as a second life. Every game feels like an event. Every pitch matters. I need that. It elevates your aggressiveness. — Al Leiter

I don't have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities. — Saul Leiter

Bond swallowed. He looked over towards Vesper. Felix Leiter was again standing beside her. He grinned slightly and Bond smiled back and raised his hand from the table in a small gesture of benediction. — Ian Fleming

When you do have really tapped out resources that cover so many investigations, it can help you move through and discard some faster. — Michael Leiter

Photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you'd never paid attention to. — Saul Leiter

I love the game very much, but when you were a certain type of player for a few years, being a front-end starter, that's the way I still think I can pitch. But the body tells you no. — Al Leiter

I am not immersed in self-admiration. — Saul Leiter

When I am listening to Vivaldi or Japanese music or making spaghetti at 3 in the morning and realize that I don't have the proper sauce for it, fame is of no use. — Saul Leiter

A recent book by University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law Brian Leiter outlines what I believe will become the theoretical consensus that does away with religious liberty in spirit if not in letter. "There is no principled reason," he writes, "for legal or constitutional regimes to single out religion for protection." . . . Evoking the principle of fairness, Leiter argues that everybody's conscience should be accorded the same legal protections. Thus he proposes to replace religious liberty with a plenary "liberty of conscience."

Leiter's argument is libertarian. He wants to get the government out of the business of deciding whose conscience is worth protecting. This mentality seems to expand freedom, but that's an illusion. In practice it will lead to diminished freedom, as is always the case with any thoroughgoing libertarianism. — R. R. Reno

Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learned to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything. — Saul Leiter

We're not going to have a perfect batting average and it's important that Americans understand that. — Michael Leiter

The important thing in life is not what you get, but what you throw out. — Saul Leiter

For seven years, I was in this fishbowl with this intensity, with all the stuff that went on with the Mets. — Al Leiter

My brothers were rabbis. My grandfather was a rabbi. — Saul Leiter

I've never been overwhelmed with a desire to become famous. It's not that I didn't want to have my work appreciated, but for some reason - maybe it's because my father disapproved of almost everything I did - in some secret place in my being was a desire to avoid success. — Saul Leiter

My family was very unhappy about my becoming a photographer - profoundly and deeply unhappy. — Saul Leiter

You put deadlines on people you really don't want, because that's how you feel about them. — Al Leiter

I have been told that some of my photographs maybe indicate that I am a painter. — Saul Leiter

Bond insisted ordering Leiter's Haig-and-Haig "on the rocks" and then he looked carefully at the barman. "A Dry Martini", he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet." "Oui, monsieur." Just a moment. Three measures of Gordons, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemonpeel. Got it?" "Certainly, monsieur." The barman seemed pleased with the idea. — Ian Fleming

You've got a huge American population, you've got a small, small, small subset that is radicalized, and you have an even smaller subset that actually takes action. And you can't cover everyone who has some contact, someone bad. What you need is offense overseas, defense at home with intelligence and law enforcement, and really deep engagement with these communities. — Michael Leiter

But I'm still not 100% convinced that Roger Clemens took steroids. I'm not. — Al Leiter

I started out as a fashion photographer. One cannot say that I was successful but there was enough work to keep me busy. I collaborated with Harper's Bazaar and other magazines. I was constantly aware that those who hired me would have preferred to work with a star such as Avedon. But it didn't matter. I had work and I made a living. At the same time, I took my own photographs. Strangely enough, I knew exactly what I wanted and what I liked. — Saul Leiter

There are the things that are out in the open, and there are the things that are hidden. The real world has more to do with what is hidden. — Saul Leiter

Sometimes I'm amazed by how much you can do as a photographer. — Saul Leiter

I leave these speculations to others. It's quite possible that my work represents a search for beauty in the most prosaic and ordinary places. One doesn't have to be in some faraway dreamland in order to find beauty. — Saul Leiter

I must admit that I am not a member of the ugly school. I have a great regard for certain notions of beauty even though to some it is an old fashioned idea. Some photographers think that by taking pictures of human misery, they are addressing a serious problem. I do not think that misery is more profound than happiness. — Saul Leiter

My father thought photography was done by lowlifes. — Saul Leiter

I like it when one is not certain what one sees. When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion. — Saul Leiter