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

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.

Now a Protestant confronting a Catholic ghost is exactly Shakespeare's way of grappling with what was not simply a general social problem but one lived out in his own life.

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.

Poems are difficult to silence.

I have lots of things that aren't so old that I value, such as a copy of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," which he signed for me.