It doesn't rub me the wrong way, I think they're interesting quotes. But I had to smile at the fifth one. If you look at his contact sheets (some of which have been published) you see that he generally worked like most other 35mm street photographers - make a whole bunch of photographs of a particular scene and then later pick the best one from the contact sheets. If he had been a digital photographer we'd call it "spray and pray." He was a great photographer but he stretched the truth to a breaking point when he said or implied that he waited for the "decisive moment" and then clicked the shutter once and only once to capture it. That wasn't at all how he actually worked for his street scene stuff, it was more like the "decisive edit" as one of my former photography professors called it.
The fact is that like many great artists, good old C-B wasn't a very nice person - selfish, self-centered, egotistical, dishonest, and frankly an outright fraud in some respects. But we judge him by his art, not his character.
Anyone who wants a really good read about C-B's personality and his working methods should try to find the book "Sextet - T.S. Eliot & Truman Capote & Others" by John Malcolm Brinnnin. C-B is one of the "Others." The book includes a hilarious account of a lengthy photo trip the author took with C-B for the purpose of publishing a book of C-B's photographs and the author's writing. Despite their supposedly co-equal status, C-B treated the author like his personal servant and eventually reneged on their agreement to split the money. All told in a more or less affectionate, and very humorous, way.
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