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When We Say That We Love a Writer’s Work
“When we say that we love a writer’s work, we are always stretching the truth: what we really mean is that we love about half of it. Sometimes rather more than half, sometimes rather less. The vast...
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New Bibles for a New Babel
“Four hundred years ago, just as William Shakespeare was reaching the height of his powers and showing the new scope and variety of the English language, and just as ‘England’ itself was becoming more...
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The Rustle of a Wing
“Dear friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me. The loved and loving brother and friend, died where manhood’s morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows...
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The Undiscovered Country
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes...
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Julian Barnes on Belief and Doubt in Religious Art
I went to a concert in London with my friend J. The sacred choral work we heard has gone from my memory, but not his question afterwards: “How many times in the course of that did you think of our...
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The Only Conversation Worth Having
“I’ll close on the implied question that Bill asked me earlier. Why don’t you accept this wonderful offer? Why wouldn’t you like to meet Shakespeare, for example? I don’t know if you really think that...
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The Seven Ages of Man
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,...
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Alexander Hamilton the Bachelor
In December of 1779, a twenty-four year-old Alexander Hamilton wrote to his friend John Laurens, asking Laurens to find for him a wife in South Carolina: “She must be young, handsome (I lay most...
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Christopher Hitchens and His Mother
“I mustn’t pretend to remember more than I really do, but I am very aware that it makes a great difference to have had, in early life, a passionate lady in one’s own corner… I am speaking of the time...
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The Importance of Oscar Wilde
“It was really Oscar Wilde who awoke language in my head in a way like nobody else, and I think also discovering the kind of man Oscar Wilde was, was an enormous influence as well. The fact that you...
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