It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.

Who reads short stories? one is asked, and I like to think that they are read by men and women in the dentist's office, waiting to be called to the chair; they are read on transcontinental plane trips instead of watching banal and vulgar films spin out the time between our coasts; they are read by discerning and well-informed men and women who seem to feel that narrative fiction can contribute to our understanding of one another and the sometimes bewildering world around us.

Without a reader, I cannot write. It's like a kiss: they cannot be done alone.

The poet or storyteller who feels that he is competing with a superb double play in the World Series is a lost man. One would not want as a reader a man who did not appreciate the finesse of a double play.

I write to make sense of my life." -John Cheever, quoted in _Cheever - A Life_ (2009) by Blake Bailey

To be an American and unable to play baseball is comparable to being a Polynesian and unable to swim.

Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains.