Perhaps the people I choose to paint are often objects of derision - celebrity is a bit of a put-down term, isn't it? But to me they are my world.

I do have a very, very big problem with someone who saw me coming and exploited me as a mascot.

A common misperception of me is that I am a victim. I am not a victim. I am just honest about how things affect me.

I think there is a total equality for me between painting a literary figure or Kate Moss or my Mum or a dog or a bird. To me, they are all absolutely equal.

Even in the most horrendous situations there is always something to smile about.

I'm looking forward to being old, to be able to accept what I am and become self-sufficient. Mid-forties is a good age and it's not too far away.

I like strong/vulnerable interesting women, and then sometimes I like painting beautiful men, like Kurt Cobain, or Mr Darcy.

I wanted my work to be seen for free in a public space, I want to be up there with Pollock and de Kooning, one of the big boys.

Books are my one luxury. I have a lot of large coffee-table-size art books, in the shelves above my bed, about people like Warhol, Basquiat and Velasquez.

I like to watch old films. Meet Me in St Louis, Cul-de-Sac and Buffalo 66 are some of my favourites.

On Christmas Day I'll head off for a couple of laps around the Serpentine, or a trek around the whole of Hyde Park. Or I'll walk right across town, with Curtis, my son Jamie's bull mastiff.

Opportunities to share love and compassion are all around us. Its going to take an army of compassionate people to heal our world. How will you show yours?

It is better to be a true disciple than a false follower.

I don't know what I shall do. I just want to go away and look at people and think.

Scientific discoveries (not theories) are found more and more to fit into the record God has given us in His Word.

According to Joss [Whedon], “TV is a question, movies are an answer.

Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.

In teaching there should be no distinction of classes.

God cares most not about making us comfortable, but about teaching us to hate our transgressions and to grow up spiritually to love him.

It is the responsibility of every adult... to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and that they are not alone.

Why does every black person in the movies have to play a servant? How about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase?