I'm not some kind of machine that paints pictures.

Art thrives on society and society thrives on its art.

I love isolation. It's very important for me to have time and space to myself when I can sit and read or write as well as paint. It's all part of the process.

Some sitters don't engage with the process of having their portrait painted at all. They'll think it's a good opportunity to catch up with all their phone calls.

It's important to start off with ideals, even if they become modified at some later stage.

I benefit from contemplation, but it's a great antidote to that, having someone interesting come into the studio environment to be painted, so that I can experience a little bit of their world.

It is intensely frustrating to be misquoted.

One of my principal concerns is the contradiction between appearance and reality - illusion and reality. I try to set up an expectation of sorts and then contradict it.

One of the big failings of art schools is that students aren't given any teaching on how to survive as a one-person business, which is what it is.

A contemporary painting is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it and not a predetermined figure.

The Providence granted me with the ability to think, and thinking unveiled to me that, sadly, there was no providence.

Are you in love with your idea more than your reality? Change that.

The starry night moon was smiling with beauty and charm that let me know that I am the star in her sky, and she loves me forever.

Mothers are great. They outlast everything. But when they're bad, they're the worst thing that can happen.

Barnsley have started off the way they mean to begin.

If there were more women heads of state in the world, the world would be more peaceful and better focused on the improvement of the overall quality of life and welfare.

Now I know I understand that it was Sgt. Pepper's Band, that put the sixties into song, where have all the heroes gone?

That energy which veils itself in mildness is most effective of its object.

The real past can traumatize us, but so can the real future.

Freedom [is] the first-born daughter of science