For many years I didn't have health insurance.

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."

Writers have the purity of their art and what they want to achieve with that, and that this purity is bound up with the messy material conditions of trying to make a living while doing that work.

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.

For many years I didn't have health insurance.

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.

It's very hard right now to be a pro sports fan. The economics of this stuff is abysmal.