I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.

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.

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.

We think we are being interesting to others when we are being interesting to ourselves.

Taking the time to reflect on how you arrived at where you are today can have a massive impact on what your life will be like tomorrow.

It is not my democracy as a person; it is our democracy as a society.

I almost broke my coccyx on 'The Wolf Man,' and I banged my head once. I had to fall really hard.

The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them

If god had meant us to use the metric system he would have given us ten finger and ten toes.

I will compensate all your one-inch, two-inch losses because I know how important every inch is to you aged, decrepit men.

Let us hope, I prayed, that a kind Providence will put a speedy end to the acts of God under which we have been laboring.

Instead of me keeping my art a personal thing, we can use it to save lives, change lives and inspire.

I'm both challenged and excited. My excitement is: I get a chance to give something back. My challenge is: The shortest seminar I usually do is 50 hours.