It’s better to push one masterwork out into the world that allows you to influence the entire marketplace than do what most people do. You work all day constantly. You’re constantly putting out different pieces of work, and because you’re putting out so much work, it’s not very good. It took Shah Jahan 21 years to build the Taj Mahal. It took Michelangelo four years to do the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Great work takes time. If you look at all the great novels, you look at all the great movies, if you look at all the great architectural monuments, that wasn’t done in a day. It wasn’t done in a week. It wasn’t done in a short period of time because genius requires intensity and detail and craft, and then recovery, and then ingenuity and optimization. It is better to release one War and Peace. It is better to release one Citizen Kane that stands the test of time than put out a million mediocrities.
