The only business of the historian is to relate things exactly as they are: this he can never do as long as he is afraid

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.

Be grateful. By slaying you now, I spare you an eternity of torment.

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 single greatest impediment to error prevention in the medical industry is that we punish people for making mistakes.

Now that I know what I want, I don't have to hold on to it quite so much.

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.

Arrogance and selfishness are not the only reasons behind our loneliness, but most often we used to be alone because of them.

August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.

Anger in the black community towards Republicans is established and immutable.

I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life. Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe.

Bridget cried for the leavers and the left. For the people, like herself, grimly forsaking what precious gifts they would ever get.

...one of the ways in which cats show happiness is by sleeping.

Encouragement is the oxygen of the soul.

I love to do movies. That's something that I find so much joy in, in being able to travel around and play new characters.

Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon.

Smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness, a God indifferent to everything but adulation, and full of partiality for his individual favorites, lacks an essential element of largeness.