This kid would show me rough drafts of his papers ? he had spoken English for not even a full year ? and he was as good as about any freshman already.

A novel rough draft is like bread dough; you need to beat the crap out of it for it to rise.

The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think.

This is not a screenplay. I don't do twenty drafts. I'm not going to show this to you until it's published or accepted for publication. You can make whatever suggestions you want, but I probably will ignore them entirely.

I used to write a lot of songs. I was an English major in college. I was a deluded poet for a year. Totally deluded.

We've been down that much in the past, but not this year. But I told the guys, it's a full game and you have to keep playing defense and stay true to it and the shots will fall.