The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter

Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait.

The only secret I can claim to have is concentration, and that's something that can't be taught.

The painting is always done very much with [the model's] co-operation. The problem with painting a nude, of course, is that it deepens the transaction. You can scrap a painting of someone's face and it imperils the sitter's self-esteem less than scrapping a painting of the whole naked body.

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.

The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.

A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure.