Clive James, Cultural Amnesia (2007):

Any effective writer of expository prose is an artist of a kind, and artists give shape to the facts. But facts are recalcitrant, and often they refuse to fit, especially when political. The artist who fancies himself above politics is tacitly conceding that the world is too much for him, even as the concession gives him freedom. It can be a fine freedom, but it counts for nothing beside the freedom of the common people, and when the discrepancy shows up with tragic force, we are right to call a halt to our admiration, and ask: is this really so well expressed, if reality is so very different? We question, that is, the earthbound soul behind the transcendental work. To say so might seem to let in the incubus of biographical enquiry, and thus issue a licence to every dunce who wants to make a living out of the elementary revelation that our idols have feet of clay. But there was never any humanism without humans. The only peril is that we will stop short, by failing to realize that the personality of the creator is a created marvel in itself, and all the more so for its weaknesses, which are close to the source of its inspiration. Fame is not the spur. Fame is the result. Creativity starts in the well of human feeling which for want of a better single word we call the soul. It is more glamorous and exciting to believe that creativity starts in the gift; but by what has happened to some gifts we can see that the soul is where they came from, and is what reaches us even when we fight shy of reaching it.