Everything in painting is about relationship, so I judge each area by its relationship to the surrounding areas.

Most beginners are too anxious for results. Real progress takes place over a long period of time.

I always work directly from life, partly because I really enjoy having an interaction with the person in front of me but also because I love having a direct response to shape and color.

Leaving some areas less finished in a painting, or more out of focus than others, allows the imagination to finish them and gives more importance to the detailed parts.

Nothing is more beautiful than a line that brings out a form.

You have to evolve as an artist, and this is really a lifelong process.

A painting has its own existence and reality, and I make changes freely to meet the painting's needs. This sometimes takes me in another direction.

Cats sleep in a state of total abandon, and I find that state very interesting in people as well.

Sometimes working on one painting will help solve a problem in another painting.

I usually start by doing one or more color studies of the subject on a piece of canvas taped to cardboard.

Artists make things so much easier for themselves when they learn to trust their eyes.

One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.

We discover God when we see Him in people

I've always cared more about taking pictures than about the art market.

God does not answer our desperate questionings; he simply gives us himself.

Krishna says, fight. He says, go out in the battlefield and kill those people whom it's your job to kill.

Men of science have made abundant mistakes of every kind; their knowledge has improved only because of their gradual abandonment of ancient errors, poor approximations, and premature conclusions.

There's often a natural inclination to want more.

[...] even in the cruelest human being there can exist a flower of good. Maybe just the tiniest blossom, in need of water and sunlight, but a flower just the same.

I did a dozen superhero pinups. I signed them "Kirby/Royer" because it was Kirby's drawing. I didn't think I was committing some sort of sin.

But children, hark! Your mother would rather, When you arrived, have been your father.