I was a bartender for a long time so I know how to make drinks but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did and why I get to produce more writing than she did and why my marriage isn't in dire straits.

Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits but you accept everybody just because they're alive and human.

I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another. In fact my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place.

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint.

The moment a person forms a theory his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

I do portraits. I usually do live models in a class environment but I've been painting at home more. I really love the human form and I love faces. I've tried to do landscapes a few times.

I suppose I'm intrigued with the bad traits of society because I'm a part of society and the bad traits pose the dangerous questions for our future.

Havin' fun while freedom fightin' must be one of those lunatic Texas traits we get from the water - which is known to have lithium in it - because it goes all the way back to Sam Houston surely the most lovable the most human and the funniest of all the great men this country has ever produced.

I think in the end when you're famous people like to narrow you down to a few personality traits. I think I've just become this ambitious say-whatever's-on-her-mind intimidating person. And that's part of my personality but it's certainly not anywhere near the whole thing.

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men kindness and generosity openness honesty understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest sharpness greed acquisitiveness meanness egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

Traits like humility courage and empathy are easily overlooked - but it's immensely important to find them in your closest relationships.

You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.

I might have some character traits that some might see as innocence or naive. That's because I discovered peace and happiness in my soul. And with this knowledge I also see the beauty of human life.

You that would judge me do not judge alone this book or that come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon Ireland's history in their lineaments trace think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone because I am the person I know best.