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

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

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.

Sometimes, when I've been staring too hard, I've noticed that I could see the circumference of my own eye.

A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.

What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.