Lies are just another kind of storytelling, but with the very distinct and enlivening motive of desperation. Since writers are by nature desperate creatures, they usually do a pretty good (or pretty awful, but always interesting) job of lying.

I think, as we all learn as a child, you have to learn to tolerate ambiguity better and I'm still terrible at it and I hate it; even the word ambiguity makes me sick to me stomach.

Sports is a bloodless rehearsal of confrontation, and everyone shakes hands or high fives or fist bumps at the end to show that everything is okay.

When you think about it, the end of the world is a little bit like death: We all know it's going to come eventually, and as we get older, we feel we see the signs more and more distinctly.

From a very selfish point of view, I'm enchanted by the idea that a politician can come along and speak simply and clearly and truthfully to an electorate as though they are grown-ups and to feel the electorate respond to that.

Americans don't need a metaphor for war. We have war. If anything, we use war as a metaphor for sports.

There is a need for expertise, for real expertise. I'm not doing much to help that cause, but I think we can find the healthy balance between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. Jocks and nerds may come together, I believe it.