I only believe in conspicuous consumption for the sake of Bacchus, Dionysus, Jesus, Apollo, Zarathustra, Hercules, Gilgamesh, David. It must be done in the spirit of the Medicis or not at all.

Can you imagine what seeing the David would have done to a person who hadn't been desensitized—aesthetically lobotomyzed—by modernity? My G-d. Transcendence.

People may popularize, decentralize, democratize patronage; But let it—for the sake of all that is holy—be for true art: Art worthy of time and the wheel: Art that could compete with anything the aliens have made, and that we'll soon see in the James Webb kaleidoscope. ☗