Now a Protestant confronting a Catholic ghost is exactly Shakespeare's way of grappling with what was not simply a general social problem but one lived out in his own life.

My father who in this case was an obsessive life-long storyteller, and by a very peculiar trick of my father's. My father would tell a very, very long story, and the punch line would be in Yiddish.

First of all, there was a volcano of words, an eruption of words that Shakespeare had never used before that had never been used in the English language before. It's astonishing. It pours out of him.

One of my favorite writers is Michel de Montaigne. My wife gave me a beautiful 17th-century edition of Montaigne's essays translated by John Florio. That's probably my most precious possession.

Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.

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

I believe that nothing comes of nothing, even in Shakespeare. I wanted to know where he got the matter he was working with and what he did with that matter.

No special writing rituals. And my desk is usually cluttered.

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.

I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to give pleasure or it is worth nothing.

Through reading literature we can make ghosts speak to us, and we can speak back to them.

You have absolute control over your thoughts, and guarding your mind is a choice.

Many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks.

Those who write the editorials and those who write the columns, they simply are unaccountable. They're free to impose their cultural politics in the name of freedom of the press.

That's where the challenge has been. Balancing football and life. Trying not to replay every play in my head while I'm with my family. Sometimes, I've done it well. Other times, I haven't.

My hands are full when you give me your hand.

How do you know you have a servant's heart? Look at your reaction when you are treated like one.

It is unacceptable to risk the lives of American soldiers and sailors merely to accommodate the sexual lifestyles of certain individuals.

There is a story behind every person, a reason why they are the way they are. Don't be quick to judge. Be kind and assume the best.

Whatever enjoyment I might have had at the time would disappear overnight like snow melting on a warm roof.