If I stop being on good behaviour for a moment, my dark little secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and simply cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others - a received pronunciation.

Be the Worst You Can Be: Life's Too Long for Patience and Virtue

Lots of ambitious work by young artists ends up in a dumpster after its warehouse debut. So an unknown artist's big glass vitrine holding a rotting cow's head covered by maggots and swarms of buzzing flies may be pretty unsellable. Until the artist becomes a star. Then he can sell anything he touches .

I liked working in advertising, but don't believe my taste in art, such as it is, was entirely formed by TV commercials. And I don't feel especially conflicted enjoying a Mantegna one day, a Carl Andre the next day and a brash student work the next.

I don't buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane.

Artists need a lot of collectors, all kinds of collectors, buying their art.

The art critics on some of Britain's newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life.