The pleasure of sport was so often the chance to indulge the cessation of time itself--the pitcher dawdling on the mound, the skier poised at the top of a mountain trail, the basketball player with the rough skin of the ball against his palm preparing for a foul shot, the tennis player at set point over his opponent--all of them savoring a moment before committing themselves to action.

You do not cut a check in the state of Kansas to John Doe, executioner. The executioner is paid in cash so there's no trail to him

The New York Times published the guest list on the front page. The masks were a brilliant concept.

It's like people always say, Well, does sport teach you anything in life? It teaches you certain things, but it doesn't teach you other things. It doesn't teach, as I say, very much about marriage, very much about how to make a living, any of those things.

He still has the same way of calling to me, as if I'm still new to him, as if he has yet to get over me.

Well, I have to write. A lot of people forget that. They think I’m sort of crazy baffoon who can’t make up his mind what to do in life

I never understood people who don't have bookshelves.