Poems are difficult to silence.

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.

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

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.

I'm reading Hans Kummer's "In Quest of the Sacred Baboon." It's wonderful. It's a scientist's journal about baboons, but it relates to the search for human origin.

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