“What do you think of this" he asked, indicating the painting nearby.She gave him an odd look. "I think it's an enormous painting of a dog."He made a show of considering the picture and nodded seriously. "An astute observation.”

“I asked Geertrui the other day what she thought love is-real love, true love. She said that for her real love is observing another person and being observed by another person with complete attention. If she's right, you only have to look at the pictures Rembrandt painted of Titus, and there are quite a lot, to see that they loved each other. Because that is what you're seeing. Complete attention, one of the other..."but in that case," he said, speaking the words as the thought came to him, "all art is love, because all art is about looking closely, isn't it? Looking closely at what's being painted.""The artist looking closely while he paints, the viewer looking closely at what has been painted. I agree. All true art, yes. Painting, Writing-literature-also. I think it is. And bad art is a failure to observe with complete attention. So, you see why I like the history of art. It's the study of how to observe life with complete attention. It's the history of love.”

“What do you think Gemma? Do you like being painted this way?" All I can think is that being painted by him feels a lot like being fucked by him, but he already knows that.”

“I looked across to his picture on the wall, the one that showed him with a pained look on this face, with a bleeding heart painted on his chest. I knew exactly how he felt.”

“I don't think it was pain that made [Vincent Van Gogh] great - I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had.”

“What did you think I would do? Ask her if I could braid her hair after we gave each other facials and painted our toenails? Marcus”