I think Freud is about contamination, but I think that is something he learned from Shakespeare, because Shakespeare is about nothing but contamination, you might say.

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.

Our greatest currency is our time and we cannot save it. Spend it wisely and never waste another's or your own.

If you want to join the ranks of the people who changed the game, change yourself and the people around you as well.

It is quite time that our children were taught a little more about their country, for shame's sake.

To create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish.

Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair.

Parents do not own their children. They have no ‘natural right’ to control their education fully.

Never let the demands of tomorrow interfere with the pleasures and excitement of today.

Hollywood 'friends' are only after one thing. They're looking out for the next big thing, and they don't want to miss out on you just in case.

Don't let anyone drain you of your happiness today. Be drama free. Rise above the petty stuff.