No Special Writing Rituals. And

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.

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 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.

A Couple Of Years Ago I Picked Up New Yorker Writer Alma Guillermoprieto's "the Heart That Bleeds," Which Is Reportage From Latin America In The 1990s. You Can Predict That Some Books Will Give You A Thrill, But You Can't Predict The Books That Will Hit You Hard. It Is A Little Bit Like Falling In Love.

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.