My interest in painting is recording things. I think of myself as almost a documentary filmmaker... I've gotten into some curious situations.

Painting to me is constant searching. I can see what I want, but I can't get there, and yet you have to be open enough that if it goes another way, then let it go that way.

Painting is as difficult as brain surgery. It's not that relaxing. But that's the discipline.

Everything I paint is a portrait, whatever the subject.

The danger, I find, is that you can become too formulaic, like some commissioned portrait painters who develop a methodology.

Interesting is when one can produce a picture that is pretty, but with undercurrents. The metaphor that comes to mind is in the poems of Robert Frost.

I'm an odd portrait painter in that I'm not just interested in human faces. I consider almost all of my paintings to be portraits.

The real kiss of death - particularly with my father - is the extraordinary popularity of his work.

I had been elected to the National Academy of Design in New York, and one of the requirements was that you give a portrait, a self-portrait of yourself.

You could probably call the whole thing an ordinary love story.

Those who are most moral are farthest from the problem.

And though you want to last forever, You know you never will, You know you never will, And the good-bye makes the journey harder still.

I think I wished for you all of my life.

Because your question searches for deep meaning, I shall explain in simple words

We must make a journey around the world to see if a back door has perhaps been left open.

Women still get angry at me. I mean, men go after me sometimes, but most of the bad responses come from women.

Spiritually, it's always there. It gets better and better all the time. One of these days I'll just finally release all that out.

Don’t let anyone steal your milk.

For me, I believe in God, God is real.