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

I have never been convinced there's anything inherently wrong in having fun.

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

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.

Golf cannot be played in anger, or in any mood of emotiional excess. Half the golf balls struck by amateurs are hit if not in rage surely in bewilderment, or gloom, or in cynicism, or even hysterically - all of those emotional excesses must be contained by the professional. Which is why balance is one of the essential ingredients of golf. Professionals invariably trudge phlegmatically around the course - whatever emotions are seething within - with the grim yet placid and bored look of cowpokes, slack-bodied in their saddles, who have been tending the same herd for two months.

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.

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