Authors:
  • The people no longer seek consolation in art. But the refined people, the rich, the idlers seek the new, the extraordinary, the extravagant, the scandalous. I have contented these people with all the many bizarre things that come into my head. And the less they understand, the more they admire it. By amusing myself with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous... I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time.

    Attributed in Wash. Post, 30 Nov. 1952. The Post article is quoting an article in Quick Magazine from the summer of 1951. According to a letter by William S. Rubin in the New York Times, 5 Jan. 1969, this is "a trumpery originated in Il Libro Nero published by Giovanni Papini in 1951."