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

The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.

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

Admite the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the lord.

Sometimes the easiest-seeming stories to a reader are the hardest kind to write.

If there is anybody I detest, it is weak-minded sentimentalists-all those melancholy people who, out of an excess of sympathy for others, miss the thrill of their own essence and drift through life without identity, like a human fog, feeling sorry for everyone.

There is a terrible sameness to the euphoria of alcohol and the euphoria of metaphor.