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

The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion.

The first and perhaps the most important requirement for a successful writing performance - and writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig - is to understand the nature of the occasion.

But if Shakespeare himself is maybe about meaning and truth, I don't know, then he is certainly about pleasure and interest, we start with pleasure and interest, but maybe eventually it gets to meaning and truth.

[People in 1600s] didn't have many books. They would have been staggered by the personal libraries we have today, because books back then were incredibly expensive.

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

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.