Of course, I started as a collector. A true collector. I can remember as if it were only yesterday the heart-pounding excitement as I spread out upon the floor of my bedroom The Edward G. Robinson Collection of Rare Cigar Bands. I didn't play at collecting. No cigar anywhere was safe from me.

In those days I would go for an interview and find myself competing with this other chap who would always be younger and taller, and much handsomer than I.

I know I'm not much on face value, but when it comes to stage value, I'll deliver for you.

Of course, I started as a collector. A true collector. I can remember as if it were only yesterday the heart-pounding excitement as I spread out upon the floor of my bedroom The Edward G. Robinson Collection of Rare Cigar Bands. I didn't play at collecting. No cigar anywhere was safe from me.

I have not collected art. Art collected me. I never found paintings. They found me. I have never even owned a work of art. They owned me.

Nothing human is foreign to us

My father and uncles and all their friends turned their lungs black trying to satisfy my collector's zeal.