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

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.

The word 'romance,' according to the dictionary, means excitement, adventure, and something extremely real. Romance should last a lifetime.

The excitement level for me working on projects is really not a bit different from when I was 26.

Comics as art. I do comics as comics, and my opportunity to tell stories. Simple. Basic. Let the characters have the excitement, not the package. That's where I come from.

As soon as I started writing Julia, by which I mean while writing its first sentence, I felt a sudden, reassuring charge of excitement. I knew it was going to work.

So this is the only TV show in America where I am quite confident that you, the audience, will share my excitement when I tell you that coming up in our next segment, we have the best graph ever. Best graph ever.

It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner.

It's just a whole different thing, and it's just that my life has been a blessing, and I thank god every day for the gifts that he has given me and for my daughter and to be able to watch her grow and be a part of her joys and her excitement and what she wants to do in life.

At the moment you are no longer an observing, reflecting being; you have ceased to be aware of yourself; you exist only in that quiet, steady thrill that is so unlike any excitement that you have ever known.

When you coach as long as I did, you can't help but miss those Saturdays - dealing with the players, the game preparation, the challenges, the excitement.

The excitement of vitamins, nutrition and metabolism permeated the environment.

As Ralph's character begins to discover the political thriller aspect of the film, he falls deeper in love with his wife, so the two run together. That's the beauty of this film. It has fast pace and excitement, but it also has heart and soul.

Excitement was plentiful during my two years' service as a Pony Express rider.

I wanted to capture the excitement of house music, almost like a four-four beat, and the best way to do that was to use a language that was rhythmic and performative.

The president felt that it was important to send an ordinary citizen to experience the excitement of space travel as a representative for all Americans.

The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and though the weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them.

Without any intended hubris, I've lead a pretty exciting life. What I've tried to do in Mission Compromised is draw on those experiences to create a sense of excitement and realism within the story.

Dreams get you into the future and add excitement to the present.

Why is it good for football to take the excitement away from fans by overcharging them for tickets to see their team?

I'd always liked to read, but when I picked up books I wasn't getting the same kind of excitement from them that I was from going out clubbing. I wanted to get the same kind of feel.

I was out of my bed in one second, trembling with excitement, and I dashed to the door and into the adjoining room, where I could watch the streets below from the windows.

One of the people that I respect the most now, a person I think has done a heck of a lot for this world as a leader, is Margaret Thatcher. She helped create a world that offers us a lot of excitement as we look to the next century.