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

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.

Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait.

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.

Intrapersonal communication is a reflection of your self-esteem.

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.

When I reflect upon my blessings during my very nice lifetime, I am inspired to make sure that I spend the balance of the days of my existence in a productive way.

You about to play an opponent who is either bigger, stronger, faster or more experienced than you. Is there any hope at all? Absolutely, because one factor is in your favor: You are the Underdog!

God sends the cold according to the coat.

Colonialists stole not only the lands of African people and renamed them. They stole also their knowledge, so that they would know nothing about themselves

A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.

We wouldn't survive if people didn't trust us.

I love French style from the Thirties and Forties. French movie stars like Jean Gabin and Yves Montand had so much natural, effortless style.

If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised.