Most writers, most books, you have no idea whether it was a dollar or a million dollars.

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.

I tended to write the book in these bursts of two or three months at a time. So I would know, or at least feel securely, that for the next few months I was at least going to have a few hours a day.

I'm just kind of really interested in athletes as artists of a pretty serious variety and people who devote themselves to what they do in a really incredible way.

Most writers, most books, you have no idea whether it was a dollar or a million dollars.

You are skilled. I exhort you.

I mean, first, almost all writers these days teach because they don't make enough money publishing to live on, to support themselves - people like Tobias Wolff, Anne Beattie, Amy Hempel, Stuart Dybek; a lot of short story writers, for one thing.