My best training came from doing illustrations because it taught me to compose my paintings more effectively, to improve my colors, and to be ruthlessly selective.

The self-portrait is an act of objectifying the self and in that regard is a unique form of portraiture.

Very early in life, I fell in love with the landscape of the human face, where all the emotional states of life are to be found.

I continue to make paintings of people and their moments in our time because I am of that time. Out of that I hope to make pictures that are timeless.

Alas, it is just a single image - an extended moment perhaps. Unlike a biography, a portrait cannot present the many differing moments that make up a personality.

I hope that we can bridge the worlds of appearances and of insights, and thus rescue art from triviality, from 'sensation' alone.

I love an art which allows me to document my place in this mix... This is my past and my future. It has its own logic and finally, its own sense of fulfillment.

I do not believe that the way paint is applied should be more important than what is portrayed.

We do not see everything in the environment in the complete, totally resolved, explicit character of the photograph. We, in fact, prioritize our seeing.

I love the fact that there are more and more young people out there who still want to make a flat two-dimensional surface come alive with three dimensional magic.

Artists must literally go into a zone of intense seeing so the subjective and objective almost fuse together.

What is life, without someone to share with?

It’s well to have such a comfortable assurance regarding the worth of those we love. I only wish you may not find your confidence misplaced.

Just living is not always living. Look at your life. Can you call it a blessing? Can you call it a gift? A present of existence? Would you want this life to be given to you again and again?

Turnstall's view of what men could and couldn't do was sometimes odd. Our old parter Goodwin and I agreed that there was no manly or unwomanly, only what you chose to do.

If I fall now, I will die. But I don't think I will fall.

I suppose I'm trying to build an architecture that's as timeless as possible, although we're all creatures of our age.

Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you.

For better or worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.

The emerging picture is one where slavery, oppression and exploitation of society's most vulnerable members have by no means been consigned to the past.