Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.

The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement

I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do.

I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.

The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.

And, since the model he faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture, since the picture is going to be there on its own, it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art. Eliot said that art is the escape from personality, which I think is right. We know that Velázquez embezzled money from the Spanish court and wanted power and so on, but you can't see this in his art.