James Stevens

“Insight comes, more often than not, from looking at what’s been on the table all along, in front of everybody, rather than from discovering something new.” —David McCullough

Early prepubescence teaches you the unacceptability of

smelling like yourself in public. It’s an unsolvable problem

that will follow you to the grave. Your only options are

temporary, and rarely work.

All of which raises another set of questions, about art rather than morals. Which is a better measure of an artwork, its quality on average or its peaks? How should ambition be weighed against execution, jolting insight against missteps, the good against the bad?