Art always penetrates the particular fissures in one's psychic life.

The Shakespeare that Shakespeare became is the name that's attached to these astonishing objects that he left behind.

The exercise of reason is not available only to specialists; it is accessible to everyone.

One of my favorite writers is Michel de Montaigne. My wife gave me a beautiful 17th-century edition of Montaigne's essays translated by John Florio. That's probably my most precious possession.

It is not that Shakespeare's art is in technicolor and fancy, and that real life is black and white and tedious. The life that Shakespeare was living was the only life he had, and he had to use it to create what he was doing.

I'm reading Hans Kummer's "In Quest of the Sacred Baboon." It's wonderful. It's a scientist's journal about baboons, but it relates to the search for human origin.

No special writing rituals. And my desk is usually cluttered.