Happiness? No, it's not there for me.

- Robert Mapplethorpe

My work is about seeing - seeing things like they haven't been seen before.

- Robert Mapplethorpe

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

- Robert Mapplethorpe

To make pictures big is to make them more powerful.

- Robert Mapplethorpe

Beauty and the devil are the same thing.

- Robert Mapplethorpe

I don't think that there's that much difference between a photograph of a fist up someone's ass and a photograph of carnations in a bowl.

- Robert Mapplethorpe

When I’m behind a camera I forget I exist.

- Robert Mapplethorpe

I am obsessed with beauty. I want everything to be perfect, and of course it isn’t. And that’s a tough place to be because you’re never satisfied.

- Robert Mapplethorpe

I don't like that particular word 'shocking.' I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before … I was in a position to …

- Robert Mapplethorpe