Literate households in the 17th century would have had the Bible, John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress," and a couple of other books. Shakespeare plays were cheap, so you could buy those, but a folio cost a pound, which was an… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share Image
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. — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share Image
“Eve is a figure for the soul that each human should love. The commandment to be fruitful and multiply did not originally refer to… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
I believe that nothing comes of nothing, even in Shakespeare. I wanted to know where he got the matter he was working with and… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
There's a huge amount of work on Adam and Eve, from the ancient world to the present. Saint Augustine was obsessed with them.I don't… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
I'm not spitting in my own soup, I love having spent my life thinking about these things-but you don't have to know anything about… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
“The quintessential emblem of religion and the clearest manifestation of the perversity that lies at its core is the sacrifice of a… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity. — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
“you needed only to comprehend that there is a hidden natural explanation for everything that alarms or eludes you. That explanation will inevitably lead… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
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… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
“I am committed by trade to urging people to attend carefully to the verbal surfaces of what they read. Much of the pleasure and… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
When I was quite young I came across a collection of [Franz] Kafka stories and read "The Judgment." I was just floored by that… — Stephen Greenblatt Copy Share
