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"Mr. Gates will make it even more accessible to the world. I’m glad he has a tendency toward aesthetics and art and is not just a computer madman."
"After Hitler fired me, I never thought I could make a living in America. American was such a young country. Who would be interested in old things: I found from the first a great interest in the past, and interest which continues to this day."
"It is no exaggeration to say that Dr. Otto Bettmann is a living treasure. He quite literally created an archive of civilization by finding and preserving images that bring to life the history of the world." --Anthony J. Catanese, President, FAU
"Success looms if you work with unceasing abandon."
"I hate nostalgia but I’ve made a hell of a living from it."
"Photography today is all closeups. All surfaces. Look at Matthew Brady’s work. It had a lovely murkiness, style, flavor. He captured souls."
"Maybe in 50 years no one will be able to read--then the collection will be more valuable than ever."
"The doctor has a pleasant abundance of nervous energy that keeps him constantly talking, endlessly busy and intensely preoccupied watching everything with bright bird-like eyes. He laughs hugely and charges from subject to subject faster than sound travels." --Jennie Phipps, Sun Sentinel, 2/20/75
"We are always a mourner of our fate. We are always born into an inferno. In 900 B.C. Hesiod wrote ‘If I could only have been born in 1000!’" Sun-Sentinel, 2/20/75.
"There is something about Americans--they have a tremendous openness to new ideas--a nose that finds wasys to do things bigger and better." Sun-Sentinel, 2/20/75.
"Dr. Bettmann is candid, gregarious, relaxed, scholarly but not stuffy, and a nonstop talker with a finely honed and enthusiastic sense of humor. He’s also possessed of a verver and a joie de vivre that elude many folks one-third his age. And an inquisitiveness that some of us, sadly, will never experience." --Ann Genett, Ft. Laud. News, 11/23/78.
At one time, he’d hoped to do a pictorial history of Florida and house it in an honest-to-goodness Florida Archive. However, he hasn’t gotten too far: "You see, one finds old pictures tucked away in attics. And people in Florida don’t have attics," he sighs. --Ibid.
"I’ve become somewhat disillusioned with pictures. Words can do so much more in stirring people to a deeper level of consciousness. Youth has been so conditioned to look for pictures. Readers don’t want to read; they want an easy way out." Boca Raton News, 1/5/88.
"As a lad I sang Bach cantatas [at the St. Thomas Church], along with the Levys and the Cohens of Leipzig." Jim Leggett, Boca Raton Magazine, Winter, 1986.
"I take a walk along the beach and go for a swim. Then I take care of some daily chores, go to my office, read a little, write a little. For a man who lives 24 hours a day, it is essential to take a couple of hours for your body’s self-maintenance." Jim Leggett, Boca Raton Magazine, Winter, 1986.
Last updated: 12 March 2001
URL: http://www.library.fau.edu/depts/spc/ottoquot.htm
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