Poems Are Difficult To Silence.

I Believe That It Is A Whole Lifetime Of Work On Shakespeare's Part That Enabled Him To Do What He Did. But The Question Is How You Can Explain This Whole Lifetime In Such A Way To Make It Accessible And Available To Us, To Me.

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.

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.

What I Wanted To Do Was To Get That Sense Of Being In Touch With This Lost World While Holding Onto What Draws Readers And Audiences There In The First Place.