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The word priceless is only really ever used in connection with two things, with art and with human life. No one ever speaks of a building as being priceless, or a car as being priceless. But human life is priceless, and paintings, they’re the most valuable things we have, we lock them up in fortresses. They’re under armed guard. And you know, there’s a reason for that. When I was in Amsterdam, and was lucky enough to have a tour of the Rijksmuseum after hours, it was very eerie, because at one point the lights blinked out … and the most extraordinary thing, I was standing in front of the wall of Vermeers, and it was as if they all were lit with a different kind of light from within … you realized that these paintings were meant to be seen in candlelight, and that they gave off a light of their own. And you realize why these things have no price.

— “On the idea of ‘priceless’ art”, Donna Tartt  (via mirroir)

(Source: NPR, via ofyourshadow-blog)