157 Quotes by Chuck Close

Once I started working with the Polaroid, I would take a shot and if that shot was good, then I'd move the model and change the lighting or whatever... slowly sneaking up on what I wanted rather than having to predetermine what it was.

I'm very learning-disabled, and I think it drove me to what I'm doing.

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

I build a painting by putting little marks together-some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts.

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

Every idea occurs while you are working. If you are sitting around waiting for inspiration, you could sit there forever.

Get yourself in trouble. If you get yourself in trouble, you don't have the answers. And if you don't have the answers, your solution will more likely be personal because no one else's solutions will seem appropriate. You'll have to come up with your own.

I learned you could suffer a terrible tragedy and still be happy again.

In life you can be dealt a winning hand of cards and you can find a way to lose, and you can be dealt a losing hand and find a way to win. True in art and true in life: you pretty much make your own destiny. If you are by nature an optimistic person, which I am, that puts you in a better position to be lucky in life.