My current Josipovici book provided a wonderful Woolf quote, that reminds me of firstly how much I want to read more of her diaries, also that I have barely dipped into this wonderful Shakespeare collection. Here’s the excerpt:

I never yet knew how amazing his stretch and speed and word coining power is, until I felt it utterly outpace and outrace my own, seeming to start equal and when I see him draw ahead and do things I could not in my wildest tumult and utmost press of mind imagine. Even the less known and worser plays are written at a speed that is quicker than anybody else’s quickest; and the words drop so fast one can’t pick them up…. Evidently the pliancy of his mind was so complete that he could furbish out of any train of thought; and, relaxing lest fall a shower of such regarded flowers. Why then should anyone else attempt to write. That is not ‘writing’ at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.