Top 22 Quotes & Sayings by Elizabeth Peyton

There's something in music that fascinates me - how it communicates emotion so immediately. That's something I wanted in my paintings.

I love the idea that someone I like would have a piece of mine in their house and have a relationship with it.

The faces people make when they are photographed and the face they have when you draw them are very different.

I think everybody can be beautiful. Anybody can have beauty. It's about how you look at the world, in a way, and how you treat yourself.

If art is any good, it has so much of a longer trajectory than one night. Contemporary art is separate from art openings. In the end, it depends on the strength of ideas in each piece.

I don't rise to the occasion unless I'm really moved.

No one is famous when they wake up in the morning, so it's nice seeing people in moments when they're just being themselves.

I lived in London for a time in the '90s and I love it here. You know, I just go and see shows and have great dinners and walk around.

I think it is such an amazing moment when people realize what they are and what they can be, and they start putting themselves out into the world. I think you can see it in people when it's happening. They look different.

Romanticism is not just about being in a fixed state of endless beauty, because you can't live like that or live on that, that's what I've learnt.

You really need faith in yourself to make art and to stand up for what you believe in.

I think little things are more powerful because they're more honest, so people feel them more strongly.

In 19th-century France, artists were part of government. Artists are very sensitive to their time. They're very thoughtful people - it makes sense to hear what they have to say.

A painting of a person can be descriptive, but for me it's about all the things that make up a picture - the feelings, the brushstrokes - more than describing somebody. People latch on to the personalities when they talk about my work and forget the other parts.

I start listening to something, or I'm seeing somebody a lot or seeing their art. And then I just really want to make a picture of them.

To paint well, I need to be enraptured by my subjects.

Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman was one of those books I read in my mid-twenties that was life-changing. I think I had a very black-and-white view of Marie Antoinette before, but in reading that book, I developed a lot of empathy for her. She was just caught up in history. There was no place for a woman to do anything at that time anyway.

I like the really human sides of people. To meet them and see that they’re complicated and weird or shy or any of those things sort of makes it even better—to know that they can rise above that and make something great.

That's what it's all about - making art is making something live forever. Human beings especially - we can't hold on to them in any way. Painting and art is a way of holding onto things and making things go on through time.

It is such an amazing moment when people realize what they are and what they can be, and they start putting themselves out into the world. I think you can see it in people when it's happening. They look different.

Theres something in music that fascinates me - how it communicates emotion so immediately. Thats something I wanted in my paintings.

I don't think meeting people that I've done pictures of spoils it at all because I like the really human sides of people. To meet them and see that they're complicated and weird or shy or any of those things sort of makes it even better - to know that they can rise above that and make something great.