By the time I had returned to New York, I was quite confident of my ability to write on any subject I pleased without expecting critical obliteration.

The ideal proofreader should be, in my opinion, knowledgeable about every aspect of spelling, punctuation, and grammar, while being slightly dyslexic.

The most fun I’ve ever had, writing, was when I wrote my autobiographies. After all, what more interesting subject can I have than myself? Leaving this out of account, however, Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare was the most pleasant work I had ever done.

In 1968, I therefore began to write Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare, intending to go over every one of his plays carefully, explaining all the allusions and archaisms, and discussing all his references involving history, geography, mythology, or anything else I thought could use discussion.

After I had handed in Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, I felt bereft. I had worked on it so long and enjoyed it so much, I resented having to stop. I wondered if there were anything else I could do that would be comparable in pleasure, and what is the only part of English literature to compare with the Bible? Of course—the plays of William Shakespeare.

even sex takes second place to writing as far as I am concerned.

While I was writing, I was not in despair. Writing, as I think I have said before, is the perfect anodyne for me.

But I think that the greatest reason for my lack of hair-tearing was that I knew that in life I had gratified them in every way, and on their departure from me I had not one scrap of the guilt I would have experienced if I were conscious of having failed them. And I suspect that a loud and ostentatious sorrow has at its core a feeling of guilt.

I was somewhat concerned at the time that I hadn’t felt more grief and sorrow at my parents’ death. I seemed to myself to be callous and stonyhearted about it. But there were reasons. For one thing, as I’ve already stated, I don’t like vast outward shows of sorrow and I don’t like to indulge in loud lamentations. Second, both parents had had bad he