In short, it became possible - never easy, but possible - in the poet Auden's phrase to find the mortal world enough.

What we know is that Shakespeare wrote perhaps the most remarkable body of passionate love poetry in the English language to a young man.

But I never listen to music while I'm writing.

When I was quite young I came across a collection of [Franz] Kafka stories and read "The Judgment." I was just floored by that story. I couldn't understand it. I still don't. I'm talking about something I read more than 50 years ago. That story left a little scar on me.

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

I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to give pleasure or it is worth nothing.

Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.