17 Quotes by Christian Boltanski

The science about life is very optimistic. Every second, four people in the world die, and six are born. This is optimistic.

I like looking at the finger of God. Why it takes one and not another, why this one or that one, why now or why then. The finger of God is always on us. When you get older and you see your friends dying around you, you say “Why not me?” That machine is always there.

I never take photographs myself. I don’t feel like a photographer, more like a recycler.

I was lucky to be born during the time of minimalism. I think I can be colder because of this. In form I speak with minimalism but my feeling is sentimental – I am a sentimental minimalist.

You are what you are because your parents made love at that exact moment, and if they made love one second after you would be different.

In most of my photographic pieces I have manipulated the quality of the evidence that people assign to photography, in order to subvert it, or to show that photography lies – that what it conveys is not reality but a set of cultural codes.

There are very few times in creation in your life. One time is when you become an adult, one time is when your parents die, and the other time is when you are very old.

The fact that you were born means that there are no other children born because of you – you’ve killed them in a way.