It is through observation and perception of atmosphere that he [the artist] can register the feeling that he wishes his painting to give out.

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.

True beauty lies not upon gilded veneers, But found in the soul within.

...as if the world had become a giant train station in which everything was delayed until further notice.

Winning is irrelevant when you’re 11 or 12 years old. It really is it. At youth tournaments, I look at the technical ability of the players. Whether the team wins or loses - I don’t care.

I share it here because something was about to occur on that bathroom floor that would change forever the progression of my life..what happened was that I started to pray.

Fear's greatest weapon is its ability to blind one to anything. In its presence, we forget there are others to consider, things to save besides ourselves.

We're living in a world where Google beats Gallup.

I know, but no matter what I choose I have to live with it. Forever. I have to be able to go forward and not look back anymore. Can you understand that?

In life or in football, touchdowns rarely take place in seventy yard increments. Usually it's three yards and a cloud of dust.

The wife who submits to sexual intercourse against her wishes or desires, virtually commits suicide; while the husband who compels it, commits murder.

You have a moral obligation to finish the job you said you would do.