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

I don't want any colour to be noticeable... I don't want it to operate in the modernist sense as colour, something independent... Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.

When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't

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 painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.

I have a hatred of habit and routine. And what dogs love is just that. They like regular everything, and I don't have regular anything. I have a timetable, but no routine.