Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait.

The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.

Painting is sometimes like those recipes where you do all manner of elaborate things to a duck, and then end up putting it on one side and only using the skin.

The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.

What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.

Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.

The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.

It is the only point of getting up every morning: to paint, to make something good, to make something even better than before, not to give up, to compete, to be ambitious.

I've always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It's people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.

I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.

Sometimes, when I've been staring too hard, I've noticed that I could see the circumference of my own eye.

Always look ahead with great hope and believe in timeless possibilities.

For a second, Hardyy felt sorry for her. She really was messed up. 'Nobody is perfect Cheyenne. We can all do better, but do it for yourself, not for me. Not for anyone else.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

My mother felt it was time that I had some parental control, so I went off to America and went to New York.

I think 'crazy' is a compliment. I think you make money with people who are crazy.

Stunned and still not suffering. Swollen with care and anxiety and still not suffering. Useless, old and full of grief, but still not suffering.

The heart's hushed secret in the soft dark eye.

Science and religion both teach that we are all interconnected, and thus interdependent. And at the very core, we are all One. But how do we live as if we know this?

Did I really earn this, or did I just wear you all down?

Ian squeezed my hand and leaned in to whisper through all the hair. His voice was so low that I was the only one who could hear. 'I held you in my hand, Wanderer. And you were so beautiful.