I'd be grateful for any help finding an actual quote—I think he said it on a number of occasions—but speaking of photographers' sartorial styles, the late David Vestal of venerated memory once said, and unfortunately I'm paraphrasing,
"I put on my camera in the morning and take it off at night, just like my shirt."
Incidentally, David had two Leica M2's that he shot with for many years, both of which seemed to go wonky on him at the same time. So, not caring a whit for camera-status, he got himself a pair of budget Olympus SLRs and proceeded to use those. But within a decade both of those had gone south on him and couldn't be cost-efficiently repaired. At that time, several of us—I don't know if I was the only one—convinced him that he should just get his old M2's repaired. He did, and they worked for him for the remainder of his life. I believe they were auctioned on eBay after his demise.
I was sorely tempted to acquire one as a photohistorical relic, but David would never have approved of that kind of sentimentality. (I once owned Jack Lemmon's Leica M6—sold it to Arthur Elkon—and I once had a chance to buy Lee Friedlander's Focotar. But I'm not a real collector, even of wonderful relics.)
Mike
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