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

It is the only point of getting up every morning: to paint, to make something good, to make something even better than before, not to give up, to compete, to be ambitious.

The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art

The paintings live because their creator has been passionately attentive to their theme, and his attention has left something for us to look at. It seems a sort of miracle.

I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me. That would be a pointless lie, a mere bit of artfulness.

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