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.

First of all, Shakespeare is about pleasure and interest. He was from the first moment he actually wrote something for the stage, and he remains so.

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

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.

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

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