But first: sincere thanks for an outstanding piece of writing--on a fabulous topic.

I thought he meant by those words that, artistically, no amount of subsequent failure can detract from what was once attained.

[Morally, I like this saying: 'none of us is as good a person as the best thing we've ever done or as bad a person as the worst thing we've ever done'. To my mind that puts paid to the extreme form of 'cancel culture'.]