Zachary Quinto

On January 18, 2017, actor Zachary Quinto reflected on the poet Rumi and the importance of vulnerability. This was part of the program, Rumi’s Secret, at the Rubin Museum.

During the program, Quinto read the ecstatic love poetry of the 13th-century Persian mystic Rumi to mark the publication of Rumi’s Secret, a biography by Brad Gooch. Rumi, a Persian poet and Sufi mystic born over eight centuries ago, has been compared to Shakespeare for his outpouring of creativity and to Saint Francis of Assisi for his spiritual wisdom. In this breakthrough biography, Brad Gooch brilliantly brings to life the legendary man and puts a face to the name Rumi, vividly coloring in his time and place— a world as rife with conflict as our own.

Ambitious, bold, and beautifully written, Rumi’s Secret reveals the unfolding of Rumi’s devotion to a “religion of love,” remarkable in his own time and made even more relevant for the twenty-first century by this compelling account.