my sitters get tired waiting for commissioned portraits. If they commission me they have to wait years sometimes because I discard so many.

A sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on to canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is, in itself, a living thing.

My best work is always done... when I'm experimenting. If I stop experimenting I feel it just becomes a drudgery.

So long as people expect paintings to be simply coloured photographs they get no individuality and, in the case of portraits, no characterisation.

The real artist is striving to depict his subject's character and to stress the caricature, but at least it is art which is alive.

I never wanted to be commissioned to paint portraits. I like to choose my own subject and make a character study from it.

I paint as I want to with no holds barred. I am more contented lately than I have been for a long time about my work. But not dangerously so.

Honing a thing down until you can still get through with economy, that's power.

I am always worried whether I am doing my best work.

You are not who you think.You're not even the thinker.You are the one conscious of the thought.

Lella York, the self-proclaimed queen of passive-aggressive behavior. [Lella's perceptive view of herself]

Every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government.

Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.

I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.

I do not like the word tolerance, but could not think of a better one. Tolerance implies a gratuitous assumption of the inferiority of other faiths to one

I am convinced the prophets of doom have to be taken seriously.

You can't sing when you're upset. You can't sing when you're crying. You get all congested and disgusting.

It is confirmation to me that beyond the material world of cause and effect, there is a dimension of spirit waiting for our recognition. We see such a small piece of all the wonder surrounding us.

With the case of running, it really is a case of get out, set yourself a distance, run it, and then do it again the next day. It's tremendously simple.