Chuck Close

What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look. ”

I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around. ”

Photography is the easiest medium with which to be merely competent. Almost anybody can be competent. It's the hardest medium in which to have some sort of personal vision and to have a signature style. ”

You know, the way art history is taught, often there's nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same. ”

Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that's embedded in the work. ”

It's always a pleasure to talk about someone else's work. ”

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 being intuitive. ”

Every child should have a chance to feel special. ”

I think I was driven to paint portraits to commit images of friends and family to memory. I have face blindness, and once a face is flattened out, I can remember it better. ”

My mother was a piano teacher, my father an inventor. He invented the reflective paint they still use on airstrips. They had faith in my ambition, and I think that made all the difference. ”