I've always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It's people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.

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.

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.

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

What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.

Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait.

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

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

It is the only point of getting up every morning: to paint, to make something good, to make something even better than before, not to give up, to compete, to be ambitious.

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.

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

Humans have long since possessed the tools for crafting a better world. Where love, compassion, altruism and justice have failed, genetic manipulation will not succeed.

My heart swells with emotion each time I recall the sweetness of my youth!

Take the time to smell the roses. Sooner or later, you'll inhale a bee and die.

Comfort and solace come about differently for different people.

I'm too grateful that I continue to grow as an actor. I hope I get better. I feel like I am. But it's a roll of the dice every time you make a movie. Nobody knows.

I'm pretty fast with a camera when I have to be. However, I think it's irrelevant.

In the beginning [Hitler] was genial and pleasant. He would have extraordinary willpower and unheard-of influence on people.

My workout is my obligation to life. It's my tranquilizer. It's part of the way I tell the truth--and telling the truth is what's kept me going all these years.

I think sexy is vulnerability, and there's no way you can act vulnerable. It just has to be there.

I have a fantastic method for anti-ageing. It's eating. Plumps out your skin beautifully.