Chuck close

Sometimes I really want to paint somebody and I don't get a photograph that I want to work from.

I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just...

I'm not by nature a terribly intuitive person; I need to build a situation in which I will behave more intuitively, and that has really changed the life of my work - I found a way to trick myself into...

No one was more surprised than me when my paintings started selling, except maybe my dealer.

I discovered about 150 dots is the minimum number of dots to make a specific recognizable person. You can make something that looks like a head, with fewer dots, but you won't be able to give much...

Painting is a lie. It's the most magic of all media, the most transcendent. It makes space where there is no space.

The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 black-and whites.

Every child should have a chance to feel special.

I'm poor white trash from the state of Washington.

I think women realise that I love women, and very often women seem to love me.