Sometimes working on one painting will help solve a problem in another painting.

Most beginners are too anxious for results. Real progress takes place over a long period of time.

I always work directly from life, partly because I really enjoy having an interaction with the person in front of me but also because I love having a direct response to shape and color.

Leaving some areas less finished in a painting, or more out of focus than others, allows the imagination to finish them and gives more importance to the detailed parts.

Nothing is more beautiful than a line that brings out a form.

You have to evolve as an artist, and this is really a lifelong process.

A painting has its own existence and reality, and I make changes freely to meet the painting's needs. This sometimes takes me in another direction.

Cats sleep in a state of total abandon, and I find that state very interesting in people as well.

Everything in painting is about relationship, so I judge each area by its relationship to the surrounding areas.

I usually start by doing one or more color studies of the subject on a piece of canvas taped to cardboard.

Artists make things so much easier for themselves when they learn to trust their eyes.

After discovering your calling, the next challenge you are faced with is how to maximize your time

Time was this place didn’t make sense and I could live with it. Either it’s changed, or I have.

If we focus on ourselves alone, we run our nation down.

Success for me its to raise happy, healthy human beings.

I think it's cool to provoke something in people.

Time can be an ally or an enemy. What it becomes depends entirely upon you, your goals, and your determination to use every available minute.

Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know.

I played Hamlet, I played Chekhov and Ibsen and all the classics.

There was a whole display set up of all the X-Men paraphernalia. My wife couldn't resist telling this 5-year-old boy that I was Wolverine. The little kid looked up at me and he was staring at me.

I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.