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 blac…

- Elizabeth Peyton

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.

- Elizabeth Peyton

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

- Elizabeth Peyton

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.

- Elizabeth Peyton

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

- Elizabeth Peyton

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.

- Elizabeth Peyton

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

- Elizabeth Peyton

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…

- Elizabeth Peyton

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 yo…

- Elizabeth Peyton