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

Literate households in the 17th century would have had the Bible, John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress," and a couple of other books. Shakespeare plays were cheap, so you could buy those, but a folio cost a pound, which was an incredible amount of money then.

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.

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

I was in Venice teaching, so I reread Henry James's "The Wings of the Dove." I love James.

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.

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