All through his life, he swung between the ridiculous and the sublime,

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

not from the sublime to the ridiculous -- from the very ridiculous to simply the ridiculous.

Good taste is the first refuge of the non-creative. It is the last-ditch stand of the artist.

The poet, the artist, the sleuth - whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely "well-adjusted", he cannot go along with currents and trends. A strange bond often exists between antisocial types in their power to see environments as they really are. This need to interface, to confront environments with a certain antisocial power is manifest in the famous story "The Emperor's New Clothes".