There's a great three-minute account of a meeting with Borges. About the life of an artist, he says:
The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man's memory … as the years go by, if the stars are on your side, you may discover that you are at the center of a vast circle of invisible friends whom you will never get to know but who love you. And that is an immense reward.