Paula Rego Quotes

We interpret the world through stories... everybody makes in their own way sense of things, but if you have stories it helps.

Art is the only place you can do what you like. That's freedom.

Every change is a form of liberation. My mother used to say a change is always good even if it's for the worse.

I get inspiration from things that have nothing to do with painting: caricature, items from newspapers, sights in the street, proverbs, nursery-rhymes, children's games and songs, nightmares, desires, terrors. ... That question [why do you paint?] has been put to me before and my answer was, 'To give terror a face.' But it's more than that. I paint because I can't help it.

To be a dog woman is not necessarily to be downtrodden; that has very little to do with it. In these pictures every woman's a dog woman, not downtrodden, but powerful. To be bestial is good. It's physical. Eating, snarling, all activities to do with sensation are positive. To picture a woman as a dog is utterly believable.

Sketches always have more vitality than paintings because you're finding things out through doing them.