That moment when the person actually dictates the way I do the portrait is when the intimacy arrives.

Painting is like making love. You cannot ask, 'How do you do it?' But, hopefully, it is beautiful.

Fashion is the pursuit of perfection, Style is the acceptance of one's flaws.

My portraits are half what I see and the other half is invented or dictated by the person and the painting.

I never paint a portrait from a photograph, because a photograph doesn't give enough information about what the person feels.

I repeatedly refuse to make any practical decisions. I get a feeling of nausea about practicality.

When you sit for an hour and a half in front of somebody, he or she shows about twenty faces. And so it's this crazy chase of, Which face? Which one is the one?

There's poetry in the world. Poetry doesn't belong just to the poets. You know, you can look at the most premeditated, cold blooded movie and find poetry in it.

It is very scary to think mechanically about someone you know. That means that the second time you meet a person is useless. Which I tend to believe anyway.

When I look at a drawing of a person, I look at that person as living.

To me the poets are closer than I am to the idea of voice, to a sort of primeval song that we all participate in.

Don't waste water on washing your shirt, use photoshop!

Kolkata is special. I have been privileged to spend time in the city and make some great friends there. I like to go there whenever I can.

Don't assume I'm dumb because I wear a suit and tie.

No public man can be just a little crooked. There is no such thing as a no-man's land between honesty and dishonesty.

"Our government will soon become what it is already a long way toward becoming, an elective dictatorship.

I think Paul Martin doesn't mean what he says. He said he would clear this sort of thing up and he didn't do it.

I used to be hyper, throw crazy and not think about what I wanted to do with each pitch. Now I have a better understanding of what it is to be a major league pitcher.

The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity.

My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.

One ends up with a landscape one has never seen before but it is presumably the landscape you were feeling as you started the painting.