Shakespeare is universal.

Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.

The most beautiful prose paragraph yet written by any American.

We read, frequently if not unknowingly, in search of a mind more original than our own.

I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike

It is hard to go on living without some hope of encountering the extraordinary.

Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. He exists in all languages. He is put on the stage everywhere. Everyone feels that they are represented by him on the stage.

At our present bad moment, we need above all to recover our sense of literary individuality and of poetic autonomy.

Read deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and reads.

Reading well is one of the greatest pleasures that solitude can afford you.

The art and passion of reading well and deeply is waning, but [Jane] Austen still inspires people to become fanatical readers.

I am not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be.

I played drums on Keith Carradine's first record.

Leadership is an action, not a position.

The digital revolution is almost as disruptive to the traditional media business as electricity was to the candle business.

I have always felt that a man's religion was his personal and private affair.

Im a B-list celebrity trying to give it an honest look. They see me do actual work. ... I try to be the viewer with a microphone.

Always listen to your heart, because even though its on your left side, its always right.

Gaga is an entertainer, so a hat for her is part of the illusion of entertaining.

Rockefeller made his money in oil, which he discovered at the bottom of wells. Oil was considered crude in those days, but so was Rockefeller. Now both are considered quite refined.