I was 8 years old when I went across the street from my house to a fair, and they always had a used book sale. For a quarter I bought a book called 'Come On Seabiscuit.' I loved that book. It stayed with me all those years

Books on horse racing subjects have never done well, and I am told that publishers had come to think of them as the literary version of box office poison

His conviction that everything happened for a reason, and would come to good, gave him laughing equanimity even in hard times.

I have to detach myself completely from aspirations. I hardly ever listen to music anymore because it arouses all of this yearning in me

I think if I had been writing fiction, where the work is entirely dependent on the writer's creativity and the potential directions the narrative might take are infinite, I might have frozen

The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird's death to free himself, Louie had chained himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird.

People think I must have been turning cartwheels on the night I sealed the movie deal - which was only two days after sealing the book deal - but I was really quite terrified.