As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does.

Since the model he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture... it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model.

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

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

As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does.

The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.

I want paint to work as flesh.

I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do.

My work is purely autobiographical... It is about myself and my surroundings.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art.

Painting is sometimes like those recipes where you do all manner of elaborate things to a duck, and then end up putting it on one side and only using the skin.

Whether it will convince or not, depends entirely on what it is in itself, what is there to be seen.

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.

There is a distinction between fact and truth. Truth has an element of revelation about it. If something is true, it does more than strike one as merely being so.

I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.

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

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.

Now that I know what I want, I don't have to hold on to it quite so much.

The picture is all he feels about it, all he thinks worth preserving of it, all he invests it with. If all the qualities which a painter took from the model for his picture were really taken, no person could be painted twice.

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.

The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter.

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.

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

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.

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.

Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.

I never think about my style but just try and make the pictures look believable.

You ask why I'm fascinated by the human figure? As a human animal, I am interested in some of my fellow animals: in their minds and bodies.

I want to feel good, I want to feel proud, I want to feel that I give someone enough and that I get enough.

You should never feel comfortable. There is something wrong if you are. You should always feel under threat, on the edge of your seat and pushing yourself. Win one and you want to win more. It's never-ending.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

When producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it as curves. When they want to tell the public what to get, they say it in curves.

I want the municipality to be a helping hand to the man with a desire of sympathy, to help the fallen when it is not in their power to help themselves.

Get me inside any boardroom and I'll get any decision I want.

The avantgarde are people who don't exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there.

If I had to come up with something that just came to me, I think growing up in a small town, I want knowledge. I still think today, knowledge is one of the keys.

I want to thank all the fans for their support over the years. Keep supporting the Knicks, we're moving in the right direction here and we will be exciting to watch and competing against the best in the NBA. Come back to the Garden for those exciting games.

If you want something that's going to provide you with a lot of challenges and a variety of different things to do, then you really can't beat a place like the Air Force. I don't mean this to sound like a recruiting pitch. But it's been a lot of fun.

I want to spend more time with those kids. I want to dedicate my time to train those kids and teach them what it takes, what they need to do to get to this level.

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited, and then end up embarrassing family, friends, and even strangers.

At one point in your life, you'll have the thing you want or the reasons why you don't.

It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can't have.

Once you drink one glass, you want another.

If you want to grow old as a pilot, you've got to know when to push it, and when to back off.

I don't want any more vicissitudes, I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I've had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.

Women don't like advice. They don't want you to fix their problems, they just want you to listen.

Since the beginning, I always loved the game. When you grow up in Montreal, one day you want to be a professional hockey player. When I was six or seven, I knew that was what I wanted.