16 Quotes by Alice Neel

Whether I'm painting or not, I have this overweening interest in humanity. Even if I'm not working, I'm still analyzing people.

It’s a privilege, you know, to paint and it takes up a lot of time and it means there’s a lot of things you don’t do. But still, with me, painting was more than a profession, it was also an obsession. I had to paint.

I know all the theory of everything but when I paint I don’t think of anything except the subject and me.

Cezanne said, ‘I love to paint people who have grown old naturally in the country.’ And I say I love to paint people who have been torn to shreds by the rat race in New York.

If you’re sufficiently tenacious and interested, you can accomplish what you want to accomplish in this world.

The minute I sat in front of a canvas I was happy. Because it was a world, and I could do what I liked in it.

Nobody knows what makes good art. As an artist, when it happens, you’re grateful, and then you get on with it.

Art is two things: a search for a road and a search for freedom.

When women finally get liberated, they’ll do the same that men do – dog eat dog – that’s what our culture is...