Mark Childress and Charles McNair in the Los Angeles Review of Books:
MARK CHILDRESS AND CHARLES MCNAIR: Did you dream last night?
JORGE LUIS BORGES: I dream every night. I dream before I go to sleep, and I dream after waking up. When I begin to say meaningless words, I’m seeing impossible things.
I remember that a dream gave me a story. I had a very confused, a very tangled dream. And the only thing I remembered was this: “I sell you Shakespeare’s memory.” And I wrote a story about that [“La Memoria de Shakespeare”].
What a fine name Shakespeare is, yes? But he was quite bad, don’t you think so? A man who wrote “England, that demi-Paradise.” Sounds like a bad joke, no? I mean, Shakespeare’s letting you down all the time. A very uneven writer. He’s not dependable. You have a very fine line, and then you have, well, rhetoric.
More here.