American experience seems to suggest that people are virtually unlimited in their need to give themselves away, on various levels. Some just prefer to do it in secret.

...the sun would leave my sky if I couldn't assume you'd simply come and tell me you were sad.

I wasn't all that attracted to writing originally. I read a great deal. My parents read a great deal. I do know that as my interest in tennis waned, my interest in academics increased. I mean, I started doing my homework in high school and discovering that it was somewhat fun. And then in college I barely even played on the team because just classes were much more interesting.

I just think that fiction that isn't exploring what it means to be human today isn't art.

And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don’t really mean what I’m saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.

I'd like to be the sort of person who can enjoy things at the time, instead of having to go back in my head and enjoy them.

For those who've never experienced a sunrise in the rural midwest, it's roughly as soft and romantic as someone's abruptly hitting the lights in a dark room.