Moments Without Proper Names (1987)

Gordon Parks: Self

Quotes 

• Gordon Parks : At times, especially in the adolescence of my career, I allowed my camera to pass judgment upon people, without first taking time to understand them. I took refuge in the erroneous adage that a photograph never lies. Since then, I have learned that what a man is, is not always shown on the face he wears. Usually, there's a deep truth submerged inside, often imprisoned by his most constant enemy: himself.

• Gordon Parks : Those moments without proper names - where terror is told in the wrinkling old faces and patched coats of old men smothering slowly inside the events of grander men.

• Gordon Parks : I have no secret doors to hide the memories.

• Gordon Parks : So few of us even manage to know ourselves in a lifetime. Shifting from course to course, we search for a hunger to keep us moving, frightened of whatever it is that keeps us so unsure of ourselves. Finally, we fall exhausted, entangled in a bed of remarkable excuses from which we are unable to extricate ourselves.

• Gordon Parks : In these odd moments, love gathered like butterflies on soft beating wings. Puzzling moments - understood by only those who lived them. A heartbeat away from some aging mistress voicing her somber winter song. Good moments - fragile as lillies.

• Gordon Parks : So, that's what it amounts to: time, moving on, unwaveringly. One snip of it is undetainable - even for one millisecond. Relentlessly it flows, measuring our dreams before they drop from sight, like slow falling stars.