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.

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.

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

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.

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

Be a history maker

God is going to lift you up higher, day by day and from prayer to prayer.

You are walking on thin ice - the ice of what remains of the trust between us - carrying the weight of immeasurable guilt.

Some tragic mistakes are often made by those who acquire the reins of control before their maturity is adequate to handle it.

I wanted it to be as readable as possible. I had the ambition of reaching a broader audience.

While I was travelling and I kind of had the classic realisation - that I guess most teenagers have at some point - that time's gonna run out and that's not in my power to change that.

When all the performances are excellent, critics understand it's the direction.

Stagecoach is really my first Western, actually.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I've had and also the people I've had around me.

Desire is poverty. Desire is the greatest impurity of the mind. Desire is the motive force for action. Desire in the mind is the real impurity. Even a spark of desire is a very great evil.