by then I'd figured out the gift of failure, which is that it breaks through all that held breath and isometric tension about needing to look good: it's the gift of feeling floppier.

Publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is.

Charles had once remarked that holding onto a resentment was like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.

You just have to keep getting out of your own way so that whatever it is that wants to be written can use you to write it.

It was simple reality - most competitive tennis players in my day were privileged, spoiled, entitled and white. Also, many of them were beautiful, fit, tan and of good stock - great big hair and white teeth and long legs. Then there were the rest of us.

It is hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.