It's a nice feeling to go out in the world and look for excellence - the best in man. My subject is very valid. It's about people, and about life.

I don't know if I'm an impressionist or an expressionist. You can call me an American first... I've been labeled doing neimanism, so that's what it is, I guess.

It has been difficult to hold onto many paintings but I have retained a few. Possibly the current favorite is titled 'Big Band' completed in 2005. It measures 13 feet x 9 feet. It has 18 nearly life size recognizable portraits of the biggest jazz stars that I knew and saw perform in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s and includes Wynton Marsalis.

I hold doors open for all the women. Men can open the doors for themselves.

I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work.

I always stayed in tune with my own ambitions and attitudes and I'm still my intractable old self, for better or worse.

I have always said to young artists that scholastic training and the studying of art history are crucial to fully developing as an artist.