+ Honing a thing down until you can still get through with economy, that's power. Learn your technique thoroughly, immerse yourself in it, and then just throw it all out the window, and express what you feel.. and it will come through that you are a technician.

+ A sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on to canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is, in itself, a living thing.

+ My best work was always done and still is I think when I'm experimenting. If I stop experimenting I feel it just becomes a drudgery. That's why I take so long and my sitters get tired waiting for commissioned portraits. If they commission me they have to wait years sometimes because I discard so many.

+ I've never been able to go out and paint. I've never liked drawing or painting in public. I can't bring myself to that.

+ Sometimes I move around the head, getting different angles. For instance if I get a full face there's nothing to tell you really how large the nose is. I have to get a sculptor's view of the head and do a side one too because when you're doing the full job then you can make the nose come forward.

+ I never intended to be a portrait painter. It was after the Joshua Smith painting that people began asking me to do portraits but I never wanted to be commissioned to paint portraits. I like to choose my own subject and make a character study from it.