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.

Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait.

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

I am only interested in painting the actual person, in doing a painting of them, not in using them to some ulterior end of art. For me, to use someone doing something not native to them would be wrong.

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

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.

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