I never understood people who don't have bookshelves.

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.

My favorite monologue in the book is Kate Harrington's story of her relationship with Truman.

As happens with people who love a thing too much, it destroys them. Oscar Wilde said, 'You destroy the thing that you love.' It's the other way around. What you love destroys you.

The smaller the ball used in the sport, the better the book.

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

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.