I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.

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

The process of creation becomes necessary to the painter perhaps more than is the picture. The process in fact is habit-forming

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

The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn.

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

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.