Other things awaited. It was good to be young and to know it for once. So much unfolding to do.

It was strange the way he loved her; a side long and almost casual love, as if loving her were simply a matter of course, too natural to mention.

It is no fun at all to have been writing a book for seven or so years, especially when you've never published anything before.

Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you.

You don't have to even see the common man anymore if you don't want to! Only through the telescope on your yacht.

A lot of my close friends had tolerantly washed their hands of the whole idea of me writing a book. They had said to themselves, "I don't know what he's doing."

If you're part of any kind of writerly community, some of those people will have gone through MFA programs, and their thinking leaks into yours. So whatever changes MFAs have made to the culture, it's to the culture as a whole. It can't be pinned down to individual books in a way that some people would like to do.