.

How vain these old men are - those Gerasimovs! How desperate they are for fame, acclaim, awards, prizes! They apparently think it's going to make them better filmmakers. They're pretty pathetic. Poor little dilettantes earning money with this and that. And highly professional with it, I may add.

...

I also feel sorry for these so-called artists, poets and writers who feel that they are in no fit state to work; what they are really talking about is not working but earning.

...

If a writer, despite his natural gift, gives up writing because no one will publish him, then he is no writer. The artist is distinguished by his urge to create, which by very definition is a concomitant of talent.

Andrei Tarkovsky

from Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986 (09.03.1970)